Tag Archive for: Humanitarian

Red Cross aims to make civilian wartime hacking more humanitarian


The role of civilian hackers during warfare continues to expand, and now at least one group is trying to set up some rules of engagement.

But whether the proposal from the International Committee of the Red Cross announced Wednesday will gain any traction and make these attempts more humane is anyone’s guess.

Civilian hackers have participated for a long time in various wartime conflicts, as documented by this article today in the Washington Post. For example, hackers targeted Western pro-Syrian supporters back in 2013, and Greek hackers in 2020 targeted numerous Azerbaijani government websites in support of Armenia.

Back in 2010, Richard Clarke in his book “Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It,” only envisioned the scenario where state-sponsored cyberattacks occurred. That seems almost quaint by today’s actions that have expanded into civilian participation.

Another analysis in Lawfare by Kubo Macak, a legal adviser to the Red Cross, cited government-run cyber operations that date back decades. He cites repurposing civilian smartphone apps for military use, such as reporting on enemy troop movements for weapons targeting.

What’s different today is that the Russian/Ukraine war has erased numerous boundaries between civilians and the military. This happened through attacks by both governments on civilian targets and by both governments recruiting civilian hackers to participate in various cyber offensive operations. One analysis written back in 2022 found that despite the initial foray of Russian cyberattacks, they have had minimal impact on Ukraine.

A good illustration of this blurred line is how essential Starlink’s internet access has been for the Ukrainian government’s military operations – a civilian technology that has direct military application.

“The digitalization of societies has fundamentally shifted the role of civilian involvement in conflicts in both quality and quantity,” Macak says. Civilians now have a “direct contribution to the operations on the digital battlefield as support to kinetic operations.”

In their paper, the Red Cross advisers Tilman Rodenhäuser and Mauro Vignati point out it…

Source…

The hope and the hype – humanitarian protection in the digital space – World


INTRODUCTION

Despite the many steps taken at regulatory and policy level to limit human suffering during war, civilians living in conflict zones and violent environments remain the principal victims of abuses and of the effects of violence. This reality is unfortunately showing no sign of abating. Some of the factors fueling violence include rivalrous dynamics, protracted ethnic, religious and sectarian tensions, weak rule of law, unequal access to resources, poverty and the impact of climate change, to name a few. In addition to these underlying drivers, the role of exponential digital technology, that is technology that grows and improves exponentially, should be looked at closely.

Humanitarian organizations, such as the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), work relentlessly toward ensuring the protection of the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence and to prevent human suffering. Although conflicts and related humanitarian harms are still manifesting primarily in the physical world, recent technological developments have introduced new layers of complexity to the way conflicts and violence play out and the way in which they may adversely affect the lives and safety of civilian populations on the ground.

“Protecting people” is at the heart of the ICRC’s mandate. It is a complex area of work that must constantly adapt to evolving realities. This has led to new activities, as well as continuous reflections and engagement on the development and application of international humanitarian law (IHL), humanitarian policies and programs, and operational standards. Understanding new digital challenges and their different implications is therefore critical for the ICRC and humanitarian protection responders, as they begin to devise ways to address these challenges.

DIGITAL RISKS: WHAT HAVE WE OBSERVED?

While digital technologies can help improve the lives of individuals and communities affected by war and violence, depending on their uses they can also create additional and dire risks.

Technological advances have enabled new means and methods of warfare, such as cyber-attacks, which today can disrupt or compromise…

Source…

OPINION | The Nexus Between Cyber Warfare & International Humanitarian Law – IndraStra Global

OPINION | The Nexus Between Cyber Warfare & International Humanitarian Law
IndraStra Global
The ongoing 21st century is the Era where several new military warfare concepts have emerged. The concept of Cyber warfare is one of them. Where computer networks are used for cyber-attacks instead of conventional weapons; and satellites are used for …

cyber warfare – read more