Power's New Dimension

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Power's New Dimension

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• Cyberspace, a creation of US: When the global cyberspace was created first, US built it in its own image - free, open, decentralised, distributed and self-governing. Had internet's birth been in China or Russia, these would be missing!
• Strength is weakness: Today, the internet's strengths are turning into weaknesses, because authoritarian states do not appreciate freedom. So, firewalls are coming up everywhere, and cyber weapons to attack others are spawning.
• Anyone can: The internet allows any self-taught person to build apps or platforms, and get rich. But it also allows such "hackers" to get into government and military systems to steal secrets. Rogue states and terrorist groups use footloose hackers to steal IP from enemies.
• No rules of the road: In cyberspace, there are no set rules to protect you, and insidious attacks happen without warning. Since the cyberspace now holds all of humanity's endeavours - political, cultural, economic, commercial - all are open to attack. For example, power grids and financial systems are all open to attack. India saw the Oct 2020 shutdown of Mumbai's power grid, allegedly due to Chinese attackers. 
• US under attack: In May 2021, the "Colonial Pipeline" in eastern US was hacked by people from DarkSide, for ransom, who reportedly extracted 75 Bitcoins ($5 m). Ransom paid in cryptocurrency is not traceable, at the moment. And Chinese hackers are constantly stealing US intellectual property since years (including military designs!).
• Tracking the thieves: A US firm Mandiant pointed out that a PLA unit in Shanghai was regularly stealing data from US institutions, for years. But what can be done with hackers from China, or Russia or North Korea? While the losses from thefts are real - billons of dollars worth of IP, and millions of jobs - punishment is rare.
• Costs of theft: Experts have said that unless China is made to pay a price for all this, attitudes won't change. Both the law, and the technology, need to develop to punish intruders. Clearly, even in America, with the vast surveillance (of metadata) by NSA (National Security Agency), and with a vast Silicon Valley, nothing much has been done to prevent attacks.
• Data: What is cyberspace? Just data. With 5G and internet of things (IOT), all objects would become networked, and data would be power. 

1. If the claim that data is "non-rival" in nature is accepted, then even hackers can copy it easily and US should not worry at all. ["Non-rival" nature of data means it can be used in parallel by many, and repeatedly too, without being diminished]
2. By that logic, Pentagon's R&D should be copied by China! Pfizer and Moderna's vaccine patents too  should be copied! Clearly, that's not allowed.

• Fifth domain: Cyberspace is the fifth domain of warfare, after land, air, water and space. US has a separate, unified military command - Cyber Command - for it. All major nations have turned into data nations, including India. The world faces clear threats from techno-autocratic nations like China and Russia. The question is - what will democracies do now?

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