Vote Now On Cyber Arms Control

Defense Tech are posing the question: Would an International Cyber Arms Control (ICAC) treaty help halt a cyber war?

It’s a badly phrased question. If you’re wanting to halt a ‘cyber war’, that kind of presumes it’s already started, in which case the putative ICAC would already have broken down, no? They mean ‘help prevent a cyber war’, of course, but I’m unfairly picking holes.

It’s probably fairly clear that I don’t think an ICAC would help prevent a cyberwar. An ICAC might have some mileage as a means to agreeing that cyber attacks – particularly those aimed at civilian infrastructure – are a Bad Thing, but that’s an aspiration necessarily limited by the nature of the beast to which it refers…