Pentagon works to define rules of cyber warfare

Submitted by admin on Thursday, 13 May 2010No Comment

“The U.S. military may never have a direct answer on when to fire back against a computer-based attack, a top Pentagon leader said Wednesday, reflecting the complex world of cyber warfare.

James Miller, the principal deputy undersecretary of defense, said the Pentagon has been working through a range of scenarios, in an effort to come up with rules of war that will work in an attack that can be launched from continents away in milliseconds, and routed through innocent civilians’ computers by unknown assailants.

‘I do not think we’re going to have a single answer,’ Miller said during a speech at Ogilvy Public Relations. He said officials may just have to use their judgment because there are ‘a lot of gray areas in this field.’

Miller said the Pentagon is trying to address the myriad of policy questions surrounding the issue, including when an attempt to steal sensitive data or attack a network rises to the level of aggression that must be answered.”

(Source: The Associated Press: Pentagon works to define rules of cyber warfare.)

Reno v. ACLU:
U.S. Supreme Court Finds Disputed Provisions of Communications Decency Act Unconstitutional

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On June 26, 1997, in the first Internet-related U.S. Supreme Court case ever to be decided, seven justices found the disputed provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Justice John Paul Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court, and was joined by Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Scalia, Souter, and Thomas. Justice O'Connor filed a separate opinion, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, concurring in the decision but dissenting in part.

Decision Highlights:

• The opinion was a ringing endorsement of the Internet as a "dramatic" and "unique" "marketplace of ideas."

• The Court determined that the World Wide Web is analogous to a library or a shopping mall, rejecting the government's argument that it could be viewed as more akin to a broadcast medium.

• The justices found that although sexually explicit material was "widely available" online, "users seldom encounter such content accidentally."

• In its First Amendment analysis, the Court explained that "the many ambiguities concerning the scope of [the CDA's] coverage render it problematic for purposes of the First Amendment," and declared that the Act "unquestionably silences some speakers whose messages would be entitled to constitutional protection."

• The Court found that the lower court in this case "was correct to conclude that the CDA effectively resembles the ban on 'dial-a-porn'" invalidated in an earlier decision -- Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989).

• Examining the issue of whether the rights of adults should be compromised in order to protect children, the justices declared that "in order to deny minors access to potentially harmful speech, the CDA effectively suppresses a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional right to receive and to address to one another...[w]hile we have repeatedly recognized the governmental interest in protecting children from harmful materials,...that interest does not justify an unnecessarily broad suppression of speech addressed to adults."

It’s catastrophic to hear about the booming of so called child pornography industry in the internet; this concept was re-emerged back in 2002; when a 12 year old girl named Amber started a web-site where she consider herself as a pre-teen model selling young girls in different outfits with make-ups which were too much for a pre-teen girl; to one extend it may sound pretty normal but the side effect and the members trying to access this web site questioned the nature of its content . it was obvious in the COPINE scale ("Combating Pedophile Information Networks in Europe") which varies from the scale of 1 to 10 in degree of pornographic content related to child abuse cases; meanwhile the content of this website could be placed in the first degree of COPINE scale as “Indicative” which means; Non-erotic and non-sexualized pictures showing children in their underwear, swimming costumes from either commercial sources or family albums. Pictures of children playing in normal settings, in which the context or organization of pictures by the collector indicates inappropriateness.

Another thing which rouse concerns among many was the users of the web-site aren’t modeling agencies they are individuals which login to access to the pictures…

Unfortunately there is a huge market for child pornographic materials in the internet and out of it as well; in way that according to NCME ( National Council on Measurement in Education) 20% of all pornographic contains children; its a multi billion industry and the supply exist as long as there is demand… the worst thing which brought more awareness to fight pedophiles in Europe was the Snop videos which contains bestiality toward children and different unknown horrific rituals where a group of people rape, decapitate and commit cannibalism with young children…

I always ask myself why these things should exist…