Cyber attacks are rewriting the ‘rules’ of modern warfare – and we aren’t prepared for the consequences

Vasileios Karagiannopoulos, University of Portsmouth and Mark Leiser, Leiden University

Governments are becoming ever more reliant on digital technology, making them more vulnerable to cyber attacks. In 2007, Estonia was attacked by pro-Russian hackers who crippled government servers, causing havoc. Cyber attacks in Ukraine targeted the country’s electricity grid, while Iran’s nuclear power plants were infected by malware that could have led to a nuclear meltdown.

In the US, president Trump recently declared a “national emergency” to recognise the threat to US computer networks from “foreign adversaries”.

Politically-motivated cyber attacks are becoming increasingly commonplace but unlike traditional warfare between two or more states, cyberwarfare can be launched by groups of individuals. On occasion, the state is actually caught in the crosshairs of competing hacking groups.

This doesn’t mean that states don’t actively prepare for such attacks. British defence officials have said they’re prepared to conduct cyber attacks against Moscow’s power grid, should Russia decide to launch an offensive

In most cases, cyberwarfare operations have been conducted in the background, designed as scare tactics or displays of power. But the blending of traditional warfare and cyberwarfare seems inevitable and a recent incident added a new dimension.

How to respond to cyber attacks

Israeli Defence Forces bombed a building allegedly housing Hamas hackers, after they had attempted to, according to the IDF, attack “Israeli targets” online. This is the first time a cyber attack has been met with physical force by a state’s military. But who is to blame and how should states respond when defending against cyber attacks?

Cyber attacks are a serious challenge for established laws of armed conflict. Determining the origin of an attack isn’t impossible, but the process can take weeks. Even when the origin can be confirmed, it may be difficult to establish that a state was responsible. This is especially true when cyber operations could be perpetrated by hackers in other countries routing their attacks through different jurisdictions.

NATO experts have highlighted the issue in the Tallinn Manual on International Law Applicable to Cyberwarfare. There is no consensus on whether a state is responsible for a cyber attack originating from its networks if it did not have explicit knowledge of the attack. Failure to take appropriate measures to prevent an attack by a host state could mean that the victim state is entitled to respond through proportionate use of force in self defence. But if there’s uncertainty around who is to blame for the attack, any justification for a counter-attack is diminished.

Even if the problem of attribution is resolved, a state’s right to respond with force to a cyber attack would normally be prohibited. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter protects the territorial integrity and political structures of states from attack. This can be lawfully bypassed if a state can claim they’re defending themselves against an “armed attack”.

The International Court of Justice explains that:

It will be necessary to distinguish between the most grave forms of the use of force (those constituting an armed attack) from other less grave forms.

So a cyber-attack would justify force as self-defence if it could be considered an “armed attack”. But is that possible? Only when the “scale” and “effect” of a cyber-attack are comparable to an offline “armed attack”, such as attacks that lead to deaths and widespread damage to infrastructure. If so, self-defence is justified.

But what about when a cyber attack has been successfully defended against? Then, its effects can only be guessed at. This makes deciding a proportional response even trickier. Physical force used as self-defence after the cyber attack has already been successfully defended against could be considered unnecessary and therefore, illegal. An exception, however, might be made for a preemptive defence against an imminent or possible attack.

When self-defence is considered reasonably necessary, the nature of the force permitted can vary. Proportionate counter-attacks with conventional military weapons can be acceptable responses to cyber operations under international law.

These issues are only the start of the challenges posed by cyberwarfare, which will get more complicated as technology develops. The intellectual challenges this will generate are numerous, but we still can’t help but be fearful.

Societies face potentially devastating consequences from cyberwarfare as we become more reliant on information technologies and communication networks for everyday life – and we’re only just starting to ask questions about it.

Vasileios Karagiannopoulos, Senior Lecturer in Law and Cybercrime, University of Portsmouth and Mark Leiser, Assistant Professor of Law and Digital Technologies, Leiden University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

“The Unexpected Culprit That’s Killing Your Love Life” by John P. Weiss https://link.medium.com/ARQAVVsquW

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‘It’s not play if you’re making money’: how Instagram and YouTube disrupted child labor laws

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/24/its-not-play-if-youre-making-money-how-instagram-and-youtube-disrupted-child-labor-laws?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_WordPress

The business world has changed.The tools we use have changed. The language we use has changed and even the business culture we use has changed. How businesses are financed and managed has undergone even more dynamic and aggressive change.

The vocabulary of Startup is new and in fitting with the disruption of the new business models, the gig economy and the potential unicorns. Old school is out. It is the same yet different.

Email’s are used but not as a primary way of communicating. Messaging apps fill that gap; the Slacks, the Yammers we send are a non-stop fluid communication stream. That doesn’t mean email is dead. Email is primarily used as a traceable, provable and traceable form of communication.

In Notre Dame fire, echoes of the 1837 blaze that destroyed Russia’s Winter Palace

Paul W. Werth, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

In a city graced with remarkable architecture, the cathedral of Notre Dame may be Paris’ most striking edifice. So when it was engulfed by a fire that toppled its spire, it seemed as if more than a building had been scorched; the nation had lost a piece of its soul.

How can a country respond to witnessing the devastation of its most magnificent structure?

As I watched the images, I couldn’t help but think of a similar tragedy that took place in 19th-century Russia – a story I tell in a forthcoming book about how the year 1837 played a pivotal role in Russian history.

Like the people of France who are mourning the damage to Notre Dame, the Russians were rocked by the destruction of an iconic building. Their rebuilding effort might offer some inspiration for a French populace looking to pick up the pieces of their beloved cathedral.

A palace that symbolizes ‘all that is Russian’

On Dec. 17, 1837, a fire broke out at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Now the site of the famous State Hermitage Museum, back then it served as the primary residence of the czar and his family.

Standing in the heart of the Russian capital, with 60,000 square meters of floor space and 1,500 rooms, the Winter Palace was among the world’s grandest buildings. The Russian poet Vasilii Zhukovskii wrote that the palace was “the representation of all that is Russian, all that is ours, all that relates to the Fatherland.”

Originally completed in 1762, the palace had undergone a renovation just prior to the fire. Historians aren’t precisely sure how the fire started, but they do know that defects from the renovation allowed the flames to spread quickly through the palace’s attics. By evening the structure was completely ablaze, a spectacle visible from miles away.

Informed of the fire while at St. Petersburg’s Bolshoi Theatre, Czar Nicholas I rushed to the palace, only to learn that the building couldn’t be saved. The best the monarch and his personnel could do was salvage prized possessions and prevent the fire’s spread to the Hermitage, where the emperor’s art collection was housed.

By the morning of Dec. 19, only the structure’s skeleton remained and an unknown number of people had died. The ruined palace “stood sullenly like a warrior,” one witness observed, “powerful but covered with wounds and blackened by the smoke of unprecedented battle.”

“The northern capital has lost her greatest ornament,” a local newspaper lamented.

A blow to the ruling regime

For the czar and his regime, the fire presented a political challenge.

The palace – a symbol of autocratic monarchy in an age of revolution – was now in ruins. Might the swift destruction of the palace reflect the fragility of the czarist order?

As with Paris in 2019, people expressed disbelief. How was it possible that this magnificent edifice, this national symbol, could be consigned to such destruction? Nicholas himself fell into depression, haunted by even the whiff of smoke. There were murmurs that the conflagration was God’s punishment for the impieties of a secularizing age.

Fearing that Russia’s detractors would cast the fire as a blow to the regime’s clout, Nicholas’ allies quickly mobilized to shape the narrative in Russia and abroad. They wanted the country to appear united. And they certainly didn’t want despondency to become the story.

Shaped by these imperatives and especially concerns about the international response, the first full account of the fire was written in French by the poet Petr Viazemskii and published in Paris. A Russian translation appeared two months later.

That text and others painted a highly idealized picture of the response to the tragedy. The accounts noted that the emperor forcefully directed the fire’s containment, submitting finally and humbly to God’s will. The empress Alexandra exhibited pious fortitude. Soldiers were selfless in their fervor to save the imperial family’s possessions. The Russian people, viewing the palace as their “national patrimony,” felt the loss just as keenly as the czar. (An assault on his wine cellar, and the disappearance of 215 bottles, was glossed over.)

‘Zeal overcomes all’

To reverse the humiliation of the blaze, Nicholas set a nearly impossible goal: rebuild the palace within 15 months. And to erase any memory of the conflagration, he ordered that the restored palace look exactly as it had before.

Thousands of workers labored on an enormous construction site, blowing hot air from immense furnaces to speed the drying of interiors. Occasionally spurred by sips of vodka, they made rapid progress.

On the fire’s first anniversary, portions of the restored palace were illuminated from within to showcase the progress. And on Easter Night, March 25, 1839, Nicholas celebrated the resurrection not only of Jesus Christ, but of the Winter Palace.

Some 200,000 people visited the building that Easter Day, and 6,000 laborers received a medal inscribed with the words “Zeal overcomes all.”

Outwardly identical to the old version, the new palace featured more iron, brick and ceramic in its structures – and less wood. It now had central heating and running water. It was far less fire-prone than the original.

1837 and 2019

From what we know so far, Notre Dame hasn’t experienced the same level of destruction as the Winter Palace. Mercifully, nobody died. Nor has the blaze of 2019 produced the loss of culture sustained in last year’s fire at Brazil’s National Museum.

Still, the scope of the damage has been vast.

Only time will tell what’s in store for the cathedral. The challenges of reconstruction are great. But like Nicholas, French President Emmanuel Macron has promised swift repairs. Millions in donations have already poured in.

And if the Russian phoenix of 1839 is any indication, there is hope that a renewed Notre Dame will once again grace the banks of the Seine.

Paul W. Werth, Professor of History, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ten rules of email that will reduce your stress levels

Ricardo Twumasi, University of Manchester; Cary Cooper, University of Manchester, and Lina Siegl, University of Manchester

Email and smart phones can be stressful. Academics are calling this constant work connection “technostress”. Consequently, many European countries are now offering employees the “right to disconnect”.

The way email is used is complex, it cannot simply be labelled as “good” or “bad” and research shows that personality, the type of work people do and their goals can influence the way they react to email.

Good practice with email use is not just about limiting the amount of emails sent, but improving the quality of communication.

Here are ten tips to reduce the stress of email at work:

1. Get the subject line right

Use clear and actionable subject lines.

The subject line should communicate exactly what the email is about in six to ten words, to allow the recipient to prioritise the email without even opening it. On mobile devices, many people only see the first 30 characters of a subject line. So keep it short. But make it descriptive enough to give an idea of what the email is about from just the subject line.

2. Ask yourself: is email the right medium?

Are you in the same office? Could you go and speak to the person? Could you call? Often these other forms of communication can avoid the inefficient back and forth of emailing.

Instant messaging and video calling platforms like Slack and Skype could be more appropriate for quick internal back and forth messaging. Also, remember that most of the advice below applies to all types of electronic communication.

3. Don’t email out of office hours

Research shows that out-of-hours emails make it harder for people to recover from work stress.

Try and influence your company culture by avoiding sending or replying to emails outside your normal working hours.

Management should lead by example and avoid contacting their staff outside of their normal working hours. Some workplaces even switch off email access to employees out of hours. Consider implementing this while keeping a backup phone system for emergency contact only.

New research has also shown that just the expectation of 24-hour contact can negatively affect employee health.

4. Use the delay delivery option

Some people like integrating their work and family lives and often continue working from home during their off-job time. If you are one of these people, or if you work across time zones, consider using the delay delivery option so your emails do not send until the next working day and do not interfere with other people’s off-job time.

5. Keep it positive

Think about the quality of email communication. Not just the quantity. Changes to email use should also focus on the quality of what is being sent and take into consideration the emotional reaction of the recipient.

Research suggests that conflicts are far easier to escalate and messages to be misinterpreted when communicated via email. Therefore, if it is bad news, think back to rule #2: is email the right medium?

6. Try ‘no email Friday’

In order to shift company culture and get people thinking about other methods of communication than email, try a “no email Friday” on the first Friday of every month, or maybe even every week. This is an initiative suggested by experts from the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work, and is being used by businesses around the globe. Employees are encouraged to arrange face-to-face meetings or pick up the phone – or just get on top of the many emails they already have in their inbox on that day.

7. Make your preferences known

Research has shown that not only too much but also too little email can cause stress due to a mismatch between the communication preferences of different people. Some people may like being emailed and cope much better with high email traffic than other means of communication. For these people, reducing the amount of emails they receive may cause more stress than it alleviates.

So consider people’s individual differences and make yours known. Add your preferred contact preferences to your email signature whether it is email, text or instant messages or a phone call.

8. Consider a holiday ‘bounce back’

Having a backlog of emails that builds up over the week appears to be one of the most commonly mentioned sources of technostress for workers. Think about setting up a system where emails are bounced back to the sender when someone is on holiday, with an alternative contact email for urgent requests. This would let you come back to a manageable inbox.

9. Have a separate work phone

Make this the only mobile device you can access work emails on, which gives you the freedom to switch it off after work hours. Also consider turning off email “push” (this is where your email server sends each new email to your phone when it arrives at the server) and instead choose a regular schedule (such as once per hour) for emails to be delivered to your phone (this also increases battery life).

10. Avoid late night screen time

Research suggests that late night smart phone use reduces our ability to get to sleep and also leads to constant thoughts and stress about work. This in turn reduces your sleep quality. Make the bed a phone-free zone to improve your sleep hygiene.

Ricardo Twumasi, Lecturer in Organisational Psychology, University of Manchester; Cary Cooper, 50th Anniversary Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health, University of Manchester, and Lina Siegl, PhD Researcher, University of Manchester

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.