Are We Engaged in a Cyberwar???

Differentiating Between Spying, Crime and Warfare...

America is under virtual attacks, with key government, military and private-sector information systems being assaulted from abroad. But none of that means we're experiencing a cyberwar.

That's the reckoning of James Lewis, senior fellow at the public-interest policy group Center for International and Strategic Studies. "Spying and crime are not acts of war," Lewis said at last week's panel discussion - Cyberwar: Is Congress Preparing for the Common Defense? - at the State of the Net Conference sponsored by the Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus. "I don't think we have seen a case of state-versus-state cyberwarfare. "

What would cyberwarfare entail? Some experts suggest that cyberwar - like kinetic war - must cause significant damage and disruption to critical physical infrastructures and human casualties, including deaths.

"We have not seen this type of kinetic attack. That does not mean that it won't happen if we get into a conflict with an advanced opponent," Lewis said. "They have done the reconnaissance, they have done the planning, they have built the tools to let them disrupt things like critical infrastructure. This will be part of warfare in the future. But we're in the stages before cyberwarfare. We are in the stages of people poking around. They're trying to figure out what are the rules, what are the thresholds, what's the other guy up to."

Conventional war has rules, and Congress should address the legal structure of cyberwarfare. "It's not like we're writing on blank slate here," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at Center For Democracy and Technology, a not-for-profit group that advocates a free and open Internet. "There are rules of war that would have to follow if there was an (cyber) attack."