Given the history of government surveillance programs and the numerous cases in which these well-intentioned programs have been misused, it can be concluded that surveillance programs of any kind, despite whatever good intentions they might espouse, are far from laudable. Therefore, cyber intelligence is far from being a “…really, really good thing,” as promoted by Sarah Soranno in her blog post titled: Cyber-Intelligence.

While it is true that cyber intelligence was intended to provide a measure of security by “catching the bad guys”. Surveillance in cyberspace or in any medium cannot be purely selective, meaning that surveillance must be overarching in order to spot threats before they occur, meaning that everyone and all their activities, not just potential suspects must be monitored to ensure effective security. As result, while cyber intelligence is promoted as preserving security and freedom, it can only do so by undermining the very principles it seeks to protect, rendering whatever good intentions surveillance may have had, moot.

Moreover, once the system for surveillance is put in place, it’s relatively simple for a person or an organization in a position of power to take over and use the tools of surveillance for their own purposes. Just like J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI where they overstepped their jurisdiction of providing security through their surveillance program, because they had the capability to do so; the NSA has currently overstepped their jurisdiction of providing counterintelligence, and has extended its reach into wholesale intelligence gathering through the monitoring of e-mail, correspondence and phone conversations of innocent American citizens as well as those of foreign citizens and world leaders, because it has the technology to do so, not out of good intentions.

Furthermore, the claim that cyber intelligence can be redeemed by facilitating the arrest of terrorists is wishful thinking at its worst. Again these terrorists, if indeed they are stupid enough to post their activities online, can only be detected though overarching surveillance, exposing the private information of others. What’s more, governments are not the only entity involved data collection; ISP’S actively retains all information, and since the security of information held in private hands is questionable at best, and is not subject to any oversight whatsoever, presents a tempting target for hackers or government organizations that can access that information without bothering with ask for permission, or else used by ISP’s for selfish ends.

Finally, to the claim that cyber intelligence and cyber surveillance is akin to a “shrink” and a patient is naïve. Even outside of cyberspace, the information that exchanged between patient and doctor is not entirely secure; apart from the possibility of wiretaps and video surveillance, the notes that are taken can easily be stolen, copied or else inadvertently left unsecured. This is only magnified in cyberspace, where nothing can be truly secured. Moreover, the information that is both stored by ISP’S and gathered by organizations such as the NSA are not used to establish guilt, but rather to determine innocence, which can only verified through the sifting of information to discover the guilty parties, which does not require a warrant.

In conclusion, cyber intelligence, despite what its proponents may say, does not do more good than harm, nor should it be encouraged. Far from the opinion voiced in Sarah’s post, in which information gathering and surveillance “…does no harm at all, unless you happen to be guilty of some horrible crime”, cyber intelligence harms the innocent more than the guilty since the vast majority of people must be verified as not guilty through the monitoring of their activities, in order for the truly guilty parties to be discovered.The reality is that cyber intelligence and the system behind it is open for abuse and is inherently intrusive. Therefore, rather than holding cyber intelligence as a paragon of integrity and security, it should be viewed with suspicion and curtailed in order to truly provide security.

Cyberwar and cyberwarfare have often been used interchangeably, leading many to believe that states do not engage in cyberwarfare. The traditional definition of a war is a conflict in which at least 1000 people die, whereas warfare merely denotes the use of force. In the realm of cyberspace, where there is no battlefield and no physical casualties, we must abandon preconceived notions of war and acknowledge that cyberwarfare is occurring but has taken the guise of an alternative method of conducting war, namely guerilla warfare.

In a guerilla war, nations no longer play a part, with armies dissolving into small group of combatants such as armed civilians or irregulars using alternative methods of fighting, namely ambushes, sabotage and hit-and-run tactics, rather than open confrontation. Therefore, cyberwarfare fits perfectly into this model with hackers that for all intents and purposes have no nationality and are grouped in little cells engaging in hit-and-run attacks in cyberspace.

Moreover, the typical government response to these hackers and their activities conforms to the guerilla model, with state responses being large and cumbersome, while hackers, being more mobile with no affiliations being able to melt back into the populace, until the opportunity arises.

Finally, cyberwarfare is the textbook definition of guerilla warfare, since force is used, but is not limited to personnel, and the goal is not inflict as heavy a loss as possible on the enemy, rather it is to harass and weaken the enemy through sabotage and the capture of enemy resources and intelligence. Moreover, the goal of cyberwarfare and guerilla warfare is to inflict psychological harm to the point at which the enemy is eventually unable to prosecute the war any longer, and is forced to withdraw, or is so preoccupied with fending off guerilla attacks that it no longer poses an offensive threat and is forced into a pure defensive position.

In conclusion, the threat of cyberwarfare must be recognized and the focus should not be placed on the crucial number of causalities, but rather it should focused on the frequency of attacks and the strength of state cyber security and whether or not it has been weakened to the point at which it can longer effectively deter further guerilla style cyber-attacks.

The question of Internet security and the traceability of information on the internet has come to the fore in recent years, especially, with revelations of the NSA and the sheer extent of their surveillance programs. In a blog post with the title Internet Safety 101, Danica Beck voices the opinion that encryption on the Internet is essentially futile and that avoiding the tracking of information can be summed up in one technique: “don’t use technology.” While the vulnerabilities of the Internet are glaringly apparent, and measures of ensuring one’s privacy in cyberspace should be undertaken, simply avoiding technology may be going a step too far.

Although one can be sure that one’s every move, action and indeed thought is being monitored on the internet, it would be an exaggeration to liken the powers of the NSA with the powers of an omnipotent surveillance organisation such as the Stasi or Orwell” “Big Brother”, who could truly monitor your every move public or private, on the Internet there’s far more leeway than has discussed.

To be frank, anyone who openly posts their ideas and lives online, or chooses to leave their cyber security in the hands of chance, or are just too bothered to take adequate measures to prevent their information from being tracked cannot complain about being put under surveillance, just as someone who left their door open or talked openly in public can’t complain about being monitored. Therefore, I submit that the NSA is it is not the overwhelming “Big Brother” that it is made out to be, but rather is simply a net used to trap unwary or ignorant users.

Consequently, unlike the extreme measures that had to be taken to avoid the Stasi, such as the outright avoidance of telephones, telegrams and handwritten messages that can be traced or the effective exclusion of oneself from public life. The Internet and other forms of technology provide users with a level of anonymity that can be easily achieved if people take proper precautions. One can essentially mask one’s private information with sufficiently sophisticated encryption, and further augment that encryption with a secondary layer of encryption not communicated over the internet such as the substitution of letters that can be discussed in private or through disconnected cipher machines. Moreover, one can make full use of the internet by redirecting IP addresses or us or similar tactics to avoid outright surveillance as well as making sure to thoroughly erase online tracks, or simply limiting what they place or discuss online.

In conclusion, while the process of tracing of information is inevitable, measures can be undertaken to ensure that one’s privacy and actual information cannot be easily traceable or traceable at all. As a result, the smart use of technology, and an understanding of its limitations and not the simple avoidance of it is enough to ensure one’s privacy is secure.

As the adage goes: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security deserves neither and will lose both”, and in the digital age, perhaps this holds more truth today than at any other time. However, unlike other spheres of society, the internet in all of its complexity and all-encompassing nature draws into question the ability of civil society to create and enforce effective international internet governance policies while at the same time providing security over domestic cyberspace. Therefore, civil society has little to lose by subordinating overall internet security and the execution internet governance policies to the state.

Now to those who would rail against the surrender of any control over the internet, the surrender of security does not translate to the implementation of an Orwellian system of compliance, nor does it give the state carte blanche to spy on its own citizens. Rather, just like the physical security of citizens is the responsibility of the state, so should their electronic security. Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of civil society to monitor the state to ensure it is not overstepping its mandate and in turn violating the individual security of its citizens and by extension the collective security of the state itself. However, it is only under this blanket of security that collective liberty is allowed to flourish, free from foreign attack or interference.

Once internet security is assured, civil society can begin to mobilise and create both domestic and international internet governance policies for the state to implement. Given that their collective security and nothing more than that is taken care of by the state, civil society is free to develop progressive governance policies and potential improvements to internet security rather than devoting its efforts to a paranoid obsession with individual security. Therefore, the state, bound by its mandate of providing security, and through a collective concern for law and order will only execute policies created by civil society to the best of its ability, and not delve into policymaking itself, for which it is unsuited.

In conclusion, while it may seem counterintuitive to surrender some liberty in terms of subordinating control over security to the state. It is only under the protection of the state that allows civil society to devote itself to creating effective internet governance policies that the state can then implement.

Cyberspace has drawn into question the very concept of international borders and responsibility. Traditional notions of national boundaries such as territorial waters and other means of demarcation cannot be transposed onto the recent realm of cyberspace. Therefore, approaches to cyberspace must draw from the similarly non-traditional and recent realm of airspace.

Until the invention of air travel, states were confined to policing their territorial waters and national borders both legally and physically. However, as the skies opened up, many states were confronted with the challenge of policing and enforcing an invisible all-encompassing space. Inevitably, remnants of the traditional conception of borders were incorporated into state behaviour in airspace. For example, the separation of international and territorial waters were translated to controlled and uncontrolled airspace, with a state’s sovereign airspace corresponding with the extent of its territorial waters, typically 12 nautical miles from the coastline, with anything beyond that free from individual state jurisdictions.

Consequently, the rules governing both international waters and uncontrolled airspace are not subject to any executive authority, and states can only act in an advisory capacity as to what actions can be conducted. Cyberspace not only embodies this fundamental lack of executive authority but further exacerbates it, stemming from its pervasive nature, infiltrating even sovereign jurisdictions. However, airspace regulations may provide the remedy for this seemingly lawless situation. Given that there are vast regions of uncontrolled airspace, through which planes from all nationalities and of all purposes traverse, there needs to be some semblance of authority. To that end, one state, more often than not, the United States must be, and has been accorded the responsibility of governance of this lawless space, albeit through an international treaty, preventing potential violations of airspace committed intentionally or unintentionally.

Subsequently, cyberspace must likewise be regulated; states must be willing to surrender control of cyberspace beyond their sovereign concerns and consolidate authority in one state to govern uncontrolled cyberspace. Nevertheless, control of sovereign cyberspace, like airspace must be respected, and no state, even under an international treaty can invade that sovereign space without justified cause or a country’s express permission. On the hand this should not prevent the ultimate governing state from monitoring the cyber activities of other states within the confines of uncontrolled cyberspace activities to ensure compliance and prevent potential incursions. Without a doubt, this framework relies a great deal on trust and honor among states and their behaviour towards other states; encouraging them not to invade sovereign cyberspace, without prompting a response, either from the jurisdiction being violated or the supreme governing state.

In conclusion, like airspace, uncontrolled cyberspace should be controlled by a single state under an international treaty, with individual states policing their own jurisdictions, under the assumption that neither they, nor the governing state will invade the cyberspace of other states.

Piracy, whether it is committed on the high seas, or the vast realm of the internet is theft. Now whether or not digital files or intellectual property can be defined as property to be stolen is open to interpretation, but the basic appeal of piracy has remained unchanged, plunder unsuspecting victims, and sail away, knowing that the authorities have little chance of cornering you and bringing you to book. As a result, piracy, though not a victimless crime is a relatively safe one and one in which the rewards far outweigh the potential dangers, and in a world where the internet is essentially a non-enforceable space, piracy is destined to stay.

Assuming that those who advocate that digital files and intellectual property are property and can indeed be stolen are right, then those who download or copy that information are engaged in piracy. However, the large measure of anonymity the internet provides, combined with the sheer number of people engaging in the same activity both legally and illegally i.e. paying for the right to download/copy information prevents authorities from conducting effective countermeasures or prosecuting guilty parties. As a result modern day pirates like their historical counterparts can essentially disappear, just as past authorities could not stop every passing ship on suspicion of piracy, modern authorities cannot monitor the internet or every internet user for piracy.

Moreover, the key factor that defeated the pirates of old was technology. As modern navies could equip their ships with new technologies such as steam power, pirates were unable to upgrade their ships or steal one. Therefore, pirates who did not retire were hunted down and destroyed. Although pirates continued to operate, they did so in constant fear of being discovered and outgunned.  However, the tool that led to the downfall of maritime pirates has in turn become a vital tool for digital pirates to evade prosecution and aid their activities.  With the advent of the digital era, technology was no longer the sole possession of governments and the average person could access it and improve upon it. Consequently, those who use encryption to safeguard their digital information know that there is no level of encryption that cannot be bypassed or hacked by anyone with access to a computer. So in a cruel twist, modern pirates have used technology against those who benefitted from its use in defeating their past brethren.

Subsequently, the allure of easy profit, combined with a minimal chance of being caught, with the availability of new technology ensures that the modern day digital pirate can succeed where his past counterpart failed and reap the benefits of their plundering.

China’s current cyberspace policies purport to be modern techniques intended to control and manage a new form of communication, the Internet; however, these policies have their roots deep in Chinese history and as China reinvents itself in the new millennium, it will inevitably fall back on centuries old methods of curtailing any opposition, electronic or otherwise.

As far back as to the founding of China, the ruling government has seen fit to limit the spread of information and eliminate any opposition that may threaten the stability of the regime. The first Emperor of China infamously buried “dissident” scholars alive and burned all texts save for those deemed essential: medicine and agriculture and those written by scholars loyal to the regime. While the First Emperor was undoubtedly insane and was later vilified, his techniques were readily adopted by successive dynasties and ultimately by the modern Communist State.

Subsequent dynasties may not have been as ruthless or tyrannical as the First emperor, but the fear instilled in the hearts and minds of the subjects he ruled, became embedded in Chinese governance. Nowhere is this more evident than in the stagnation of scientific research and exploration throughout Chinese history. Emperors, fearing potential revolt, withheld the secrets of gunpowder and sanctioned few expeditions abroad, culminating in an insular society that was open to exploitation by more advanced nations.

Following the Communist revolution of 1949, the Communist Regime, eager to distance itself from its predecessors, launched the Hundred Flowers Campaign, encouraging people to voice their concerns and political views to advance the fledgling nation. While it was intended to be limited, the overwhelming feedback threated to bring down the Communist regime, and the Government quickly cancelled the campaign and imprisoned those who had spoken out, culminating in the wholesale destruction of Chinese intelligentsia.

The Communist Regime often uses the Hundred Flowers Campaign as proof of the dangers of freedom of speech and opinion given freely to the population. However, the Campaign was nothing more than a deliberate ruse created to root out opposition to Regime. As a result, while China’s current cyberspace policies may seem to be modern techniques created to manage the internet, they are nothing more than a combination of practices created for the Hundred Flowers Campaign and centuries of Chinese government surveillance and information control.

In conclusion, the Chinese government makes no attempt to hide the fact that its current cyberspace policies are intended to curtail opposition to the regime and to limit the spread of information, what it does attempt to hide is the fact that these policies are the culmination of thousands of years of history. Therefore, these policies cannot be changed any more than the past can be changed.

Aerial imagery and by extension, greater transparency has always been touted as a force for good in the world; with the creation of Urthecast, not only is greater transparency possible, but it will soon be available around the world. However, even isolated aerial imagery and the greater transparency it purports to provide is not always a force for good, let alone aerial imagery on a near-planetary scale.

In spite of the obvious aesthetic appeal of such breathtaking digitised images of our planet taken from space, the fact that most of these images will be freely accessible to the public raises concerns as to what those images could be used for. Now for those who believe that Urthecast is a purely philanthropic venture created to bring to the public what on a few privileged individuals could enjoy, think again. This company, like all other tech companies, exists for the express purpose of making money, with any philanthropic contributions coming as an afterthought. While the company claims that most of the images they take will be accessible by the public, they are not obligated to publish or make available all images taken, allowing the company to preview all images before they are made public allowing the company to offer images for sale to the highest bidder.

Leaving aside the possibility of governmental interference or “patronage”, images provided by Urthecast, publicly or otherwise could also be used for corporate espionage, allowing some companies to get a glimpse of their competitors’ potential construction or research projects. Moreover, the resolution of the images, while not enough to violate privacy, can give companies the ability to analyse rival companies and their activities with minute precision allowing for particularly ruthless companies to take advantage of potential weaknesses.

In addition to corporate espionage, the sheer scale of imagery could be used for even more nefarious purposes. While the availability of constantly updated global images can be used for good such as providing advance warning of storms and limiting market volatility, it can also be used for market manipulation. Armed with advance knowledge of potential market drivers such as increased oil production or increased mining output, investors can easily use that knowledge to further their profits ahead of everyone else. Likewise, with Urthecast images, advance knowledge of potential market hazards, such as storms or political unrest allows for advance selloffs or investments. As a result, for those members of the public who are observant or for those who have access to Urthecast images hidden from the public, there is everything to gain while the rest have to settle for mere trifles in the form of pretty pictures.

Moreover, given that almost nowhere on Earth’s surface is free from observation with the presence of Urthecast, and that much of the information is open to the public, many entities such as governments and corporations who would otherwise operate in the open will be forced to either move their operations underground away from prying eyes or limit their activities that can be easily observed, depriving many of the transparency they sought for in the first place.

Undoubtedly, Urthecast was promoted as a force for good, providing tantalising images to the public and providing greater transparency at the same time. While it succeeds in providing the former, in a strange twist, when attempting to provide more transparency, it hinders the efforts of those who actually seek it, bringing the company and its image as a force for good into question.

Social media was seen as playing an integral part to bringing about political change during the Arab Spring. However, many of the studies conducted tend to exaggerate the effectiveness of social media tools in bringing about change in Authoritarian states. The very nature of social media and the anonymity it provides hinders any attempt to draw convincing conclusions correlating the use of social media tools leading to political change.

While social media is effective at disseminating information on a wide scale and connecting otherwise disinterested groups of people to rally; it is not in and of itself responsible for the political upheaval that toppled Authoritarian regimes during the Arab Spring. The fact that the Internet, and by extension social media were shut down by various leaders in their respective countries and the lack of impact it had  on preventing  people gathering or voicing their concerns, raises doubt as to the importance of social media in bringing about change.

If anything, it was the unavailability of social media tools that propelled many onto the streets in Protest. For example, it was only following President Mubarak’s decision to shut down Internet access in Egypt, that middle-class Egyptians who could no longer follow events from the comfort of their homes, joined the protests. Moreover, the general perception in Western media sources of political mobilisation within Egypt and other countries in the Arab Spring is that the vast majority of people are reliant upon the Internet to stay connected. Whereas, the reality is that within those countries, markets and tea- shops as well as traditional media tools were far more potent tools for political engagement and activism, allowing those who were isolated from social media to join the protests.

Consequently, the various studies that highlight the importance of social media in the revolutions that took place in the Arab Spring are working, not only from a Western perception of what social media is, but from sources outside of the country or region in question. A study by the University of Washington determined that during the week before Mubarak resigned, for example, the total rate of tweets, both from Egypt and around the world regarding political change in that country increased from 2,300 a day to 230,000 a day. Now given the fact the Internet was shut down, and that tweets from outside the country were included in the total, begs the question, how many of those tweets were written by actual Egyptians?

While the anonymity that social media tools provides limits the accuracy of a full quantitative study of the effect of social media during the Arab Spring, with many protestors choosing not to provide location details for obvious reasons, the study proved that in the case of Egypt, tweets originating from outside the country outnumbered those originating from within the country, by an average ratio of 10:1.Therefore, the fact that even more tweets regarding the events in Egypt were logged by those who did not provide location details, does not allow for a convincing argument to be made correlating the use of social media tools by the citizens of a particular country leading to political change in their given country.

Undoubtedly, social media played a part in facilitating political upheaval during the Arab Spring, but not to the extent we have been led to believe, nor by protestors or citizens of those countries, but rather from casual observers far from the actual events taking place.

For ten years, The Pirate Bay has seen off the efforts of both governments and courts attempting to limit its operating capacity and deny the public access to its domain; leaving the moral questions surrounding The Pirate Bay to one side, the service the website provides appeals to internet users around the world, and therein lays the problem. The very nature of the Internet, coupled with the difficulty of maintaining international boundaries, allows The Pirate Bay to continue operating in one form or another, and for Internet users around the globe to access its domain. As a result, while certain countries claim to have restricted access to the Pirate Bay, the reality is that their efforts to regulate it, and by extension, the Internet, though effective on paper has little to no effect in the real world.

Since its creation in 2003, The Pirate Bay has provided access to torrent files, and according to corporations and various governments around the world, “facilitated access to copyrighted material”. In and of itself the website is innocent enough; The Pirate Bay allows data about particular files to be shared among various network users, providing access to either the data regarding the file or the file itself. However, the fact that the file or the data regarding the file contains copyrighted material has led to numerous lawsuits and the banning of the website in certain countries.

There is no question that The Pirate Bay operates on the fringes of, and in fact trespasses over certain legal boundaries, but legal rulings against the website and government attempts to enforce those rulings have failed to make any impact. So have attempts of governments to ban the website or otherwise restrict access to it. The very fact that The Pirate Bay operates according to the rules of the Internet has been key to the Pirate Bay’s success, as well as its survival.

The Internet was designed to facilitate the transfer of information when all other forms of communication failed. So it’s not surprising that any effort to curtail the activities of certain websites, or accessibility to those websites clashes with the ever-changing dynamic of the Internet itself. The Pirate Bay has been banned in various countries around the world, but the bans have little effect. In essence, when the government of a country bans a website, it mandates Internet Service Providers to enforce the ban, and short of cutting off access to the Internet altogether, or infringe on the privacy of Internet users, the most they can do is block the URL of the website in question. However, the creation of proxy sites, acting as intermediaries who retrieve the blocked content, allows users to circumvent the restriction.

Moreover, the question of international jurisdiction comes into play. The internet is fluid and does not recognise international borders. Therefore, if a particular website is banned and access to it is blocked in one country, any countries bordering it remain unaffected and can be used as bases for proxy sites, effectively negating the intended effect of the ban.

Whatever the rhetoric espoused by governments or corporations about the data shared on The Pirate Bay, copyrighted or otherwise, the fact remains that the website has remained relatively unchanged in its purpose and form in the midst of legal challenges, fended off attempts to shut it down for good, and on August 10^th this year, the website celebrated its tenth anniversary.

The Pirate Bay proves that the fate of a website is inextricably linked with the Internet itself, and that any attempt to ban a website or restrict access to it, by extension, leads to an attempt to limit access to the Internet itself, dooming any such venture to failure.