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Anonymous ID: d978e5 Dec. 19, 2020, 8:22 a.m. No.12092611   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>2640 >>2692

Explainer - U.S. government hack: espionage or act of war?

 

(Reuters) - The suspected Russian hack of U.S. government agencies has led to heated rhetoric from lawmakers, with U.S. Senator Dick Durbin calling it "virtually a declaration of war" and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio saying that "America must retaliate, and not just with sanctions."

 

But cybersecurity and legal experts said the hack would not be considered an act of war under international law and will likely go down in history as an act of espionage.

 

Here's why.

 

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE HACK?

 

The hack, first reported by Reuters, hijacked software made by Texas-based SolarWinds Corp. By inserting malicious code into updates pushed to SolarWinds customers, the hackers were for months able to explore the computer networks of private companies, think tanks, and government agencies.

 

Sources familiar with the U.S. investigation said the hack was likely carried out by Russia's foreign intelligence service. Moscow has denied involvement.

 

The magnitude of the hack is still unclear, but hackers are known to have monitored email or other data within several U.S. government agencies.

 

The breached federal agencies include the Commerce Department, Treasury Department, and Department of Energy.

 

An Energy Department spokeswoman said malware had been "isolated to business networks only" and had not impacted U.S. national security.

 

WAS THE HACK AN 'ACT OF WAR'?

 

It is too early to say for sure, but probably not, according to cybersecurity experts.

 

To qualify as an act of war, United Nations resolutions and other sources of international law require a certain level of force or destruction that does not appear to be the case this time.

 

"Warfare implies violence, death and destruction," said Duncan Hollis, a professor of law at Temple University specializing in cybersecurity.

 

Hollis and other experts said the attack appears to have been carried out to steal sensitive U.S. information, and should be viewed as espionage.

 

"Simply stealing information, as much as we don't like it, is not an act of war — it is espionage," said Benjamin Friedman, a policy director at the think tank Defense Priorities.

 

Experts said cyber attacks can be acts of war if they cause physical destruction.

 

A Department of Defense law of war manual states that some cyber operations should be subject to the same rules as physical, or "kinetic" attacks. Examples include operations that "trigger a nuclear plant meltdown; open a dam above a populated area, causing destruction; or disable air traffic control services, resulting in airplane crashes."

 

John Bellinger, the top State Department lawyer under former Republican Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said it was not yet clear whether the hack could be considered an act of war.

 

"It may simply be a massive act of espionage that would not constitute an act of war. We don't know yet whether the Russians simply accessed U.S. government computers or actually disrupted government functions," saidBellinger, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

 

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/explainer-u-government-hack-espionage-111055486.html

Anonymous ID: d978e5 Dec. 19, 2020, 8:37 a.m. No.12092735   🗄️.is đź”—kun

Tim Severin, explorer who retraced the journeys of Ulysses and Genghis Khan – obituary

 

Tim Severin, the explorer, who has died aged 80, made his name in a highly specialised niche of travel literature: retracing epic journeys made by historical and mythological figures.

 

Inspired by the voyages of his hero Thor Heyerdahl, Severin’s “replica journeys” included riding through Europe along the route of the first Crusade; captaining an Arab sailing ship from Muscat to China to investigate the legend of Sinbad the Sailor; steering a replica of a Bronze Age galley to trace the Mediterranean journeys of Jason and Ulysses; galloping across Mongolia on horseback in search of Genghis Khan, and sailing the Pacific on a bamboo raft to test the theory that ancient Chinese mariners could have reached the west coast of America several hundred years before the birth of Christ.

 

His most famous expedition, and the subject of his bestseller The Brendan Voyage (1979), involved sailing a 36-foot wooden ox-hide covered currach, a traditional Irish boat handcrafted using traditional tools, across the Atlantic in the wake of St Brendan the Navigator, an Irish monk who is believed to have established monasteries across northern Europe during the 6th century and is reputed to have discovered North America.

 

The voyage, in 1976, took Severin from the Dingle peninsula in Ireland to Newfoundland, via the Hebrides and Iceland, during which the boat dodged circling killer whales (Brendan’s “sea monsters”, Severin surmised) and was punctured by pack ice. As a reviewer observed in National Geographic, “you begin to wonder whether Severin is out of his mind. Few modern yachts would attempt this route so how on earth would a boat made out of medieval materials and using medieval technology complete the journey?”

 

Yet, after several false starts, Severin did complete it, and he concluded that the Irish monks of the 6th century had the technology to reach America. Moreover many of the natural wonders described by St Brendan (the “Island of Sheep”, the “Paradise of Birds”, “pillars of crystal”, “mountains that hurled rocks” at voyagers) had their counterparts in the real world.

 

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/tim-severin-explorer-retraced-journeys-123803029.html