Are Wars Blurring Lines Between Corporate and National Security? (msn.com)
- Reference: 0184309096
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/07/04/1945242/are-wars-blurring-lines-between-corporate-and-national-security
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/wars-are-blurring-lines-between-corporate-and-national-security/ar-AA27c657
They've all become targets in wartime, [1]notes the Wall Street Journal , and around the world now arguments "are already brewing between companies and governments over new regulations and potential costs."
> In Germany, powerful associations representing private companies and municipal utilities have pushed back against new standards for physical protection, warning they could spell financial ruin. New Zealand's government has faced resistance from industry groups over a proposal to fine critical-infrastructure companies and their directors for cybersecurity breaches... A sign of how lines are blurring: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 32 countries last year agreed that as part of a pact to spend 5% of economic output on defense and security, 1.5% would go to military-adjacent needs including protecting critical infrastructure and networks. Spending targets range from cybersecurity and industrial capacity to railroads, bridges and ports needed for military logistics... "We need a wide concept of defense — defense is no longer just military," said Italian Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, NATO's top military adviser.
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> Adding to the complexity, companies now need to protect the data networks that serve as gateways to critical infrastructure. Hackers increasingly target not just computer files to steal information but also systems managing vital functions like building access and factory control, remotely causing physical damage or enabling espionage. U.S. authorities in April warned that Iranian hackers were trying to disrupt American drinking-water systems by targeting computer equipment that connects hardware with software. A year earlier, suspected Russian hackers remotely manipulated valves on a Norwegian hydroelectric dam...
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> Another challenge will be parsing jurisdictions and liability for assets that cross international waters or are damaged in combat — such as subsea data cables or energy pipelines. Turf battles between law enforcement and militaries are already complicating efforts... "The private owner can invest in redundancy, monitoring, and repair capacity, but only governments and militaries can really deter, patrol, attribute, or respond to hostile state activity," said Marc Glasser, who worked on cybersecurity and infrastructure security for three decades at the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security.... Companies say they need greater clarity from governments on what protections they will provide and subsidies to help them defend privately owned assets that provide a public good. Most governments don't provide incentives for companies to invest more than the minimum legal resilience requirements.
The article notes that in May the chief executive of California's Port of Long Beach "launched a cyber-defense operations center to thwart tens of thousands of cyberattacks daily, which jeopardize computer systems and all equipment connected to them."
The article also points out that the EU adopted new regulations requiring countries to reduce vulnerabilities, and new laws proposed in the U.K. now "seek to increase penalties for subsea sabotage, updating codes that date to when telegraph cables were first laid in the 19th century."
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/wars-are-blurring-lines-between-corporate-and-national-security/ar-AA27c657
Are Wars Blurring Lines... (Score:3)
> Are Wars Blurring Lines Between Corporate and National Security?
No. For everyone who can put two and two together it has always been obvious that:
1) Everything a country needs to function at war time is of strategic importance, and needs to be protected, defended, duplicated, and easily repaired, and
2) Everything a country needs to function at war time is going to be attacked. You can cry "civilian infrastructure" as much as you want, but the civilian economy supports, and is therefore largely indistinguishable from, the war economy. Damaging one means damaging another, means better chances of winning.
It was only corporations and politicians that wagered they can kick the can down the road, and not have to be the ones that will foot the bill. And they have indeed won that bet for decades, and now we have to face the fact that we have half a century of work to catch up with.
Or maybe, which is more likely, we will do our best to forget the problem, and carry on based on vibes as usual.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
They've literally spent half a century exporting our essential production to China to save a few bucks, while replacing competent employees with Indians and people who can't tell you what a woman is. Now we're supposed to believe that those people can suddenly turn all that around in time for WWIII?
It's not going to change until the West does fight one of the wars its pushing for and is decisively defeated because it's run by idiots who exported all the manufacturing to countries who don't see us as friends
Re: (Score:2)
> They've literally spent half a century exporting our essential production to China to save a few bucks
I think you mean, "so the middle men can pocket the savings".
"unstated ability to get access to systems" (Score:2)
[1]Transcript of Internet Caucus Panel Discussion Weldon statement. [techlawjournal.com] September 28, 1999
> Rep. Curt Weldon : Thank you. Let me see if I can liven things up here in the last couple of minutes of the luncheon. First of all, I apologize for being late. And I thank Bob and the members of the caucus for inviting me here.
> ...
> But the point is that when John Hamre briefed me, and gave me the three key points of this change, there are a lot of unanswered questions. He assured me that in discussions that he had had with p
[1] http://www.techlawjournal.com/cong106/encrypt/19990928a.htm#weldon1
Re: (Score:2)
> "unstated ability to get access to systems"
Difficult to guess what he was referring to from the lens of 27 years in the future. Access to data? Access to high performance computers? Access to technical expertise when the Playstation 1 and Gameboy Color were a incomprehensible marvels?
For context, in 1999 most computer users were running Win95/98 and AOL was still sending out free intro CDs. Windows 95 had just included the late-to-market "Internet Explorer 1.0" in the Plus! for Windows 95 pack and would
Who will pay? (Score:2)
If I have already built my infrastructure, have paying customers and a profitable business model and the government wants me to change how I do business they have to pay me enough to make it worth my while. Setting up rules after I have invested is not just morally wrong but extremely damaging to business confidence in a country. Companies, if they are being regulated into doing something will try and avoid it, they might even just drop the critical infrastructure all together. Plus the government will f#$k
Is This Question a Joke? (Score:5, Informative)
"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. "
-Gen. Smedley Butler, 1933
A lot of American wars are at the behest of resource-seeking corporations. National forces are brought out when corporate enforcers are inadequate or expensive. I thought all this got very obvious, too, when "Blackwater" was so much in the news during Iraq, and the legal need to give them the same immunity to every Iraqi law that American national troops enjoyed.