The grand powers on the world stage are constantly posturing and taking actions to further their own power. The United States is no different. We, civilians don't know the majority of what is taking place.
A "hot" war between two powers would be of such a great cost in human life, you would want to avoid it at all costs. This means indicting with a grand jury instead of starting a war.
I was very careful to specify "respond with the use of force as permitted by the UN Charter and international laws and norms." In other words the UN Charter only permits a response in proportion to the offense. I do think an act of cyber warfare may legally allow us of "armed force" but it would likely have to be limited to targeting the installations where the attacks were coming from (but realistically it is a new and undeveloped area of law with respect to cyber warfare).
The problem in my opinion with failing to act is we signal that there will be no military response, and these acts of cyber warfare escalate to hacking power grids or other infrastructure than results in indirect lose of life. Then due to political pressure all out war becomes more realistic.
I believe it raised to a level above spying and intelligence gathering. It was a state sponsored military act of cyber warfare that infringed on the US' territorial sovereignty.
>The appropriate response would be more akin to hacking back into China's social credit scoring company and snooping around.
The purpose of a proportionate response to military acts under the UN Charter and the use of force and armed conflict is not so much "an eye for an eye" (i.e. you hack me, I hack you), but to put an end to the military operations infringing on your sovereignty ...for example, assuming you believe Iraq had WMDs and chemical weapons or response is not to create stock piles of our own chemical weapons.
How about we start with securing our systems? Modernize identity and credit reporting, stop relying on social security numbers, etc.
The Response should be shifting the Liability back to the credit providers, not the consumers
The idea of "Identity Theft" should be a thing of the past, for you did not have your identity stolen, you still have your identity, no the bank was defrauded by giving money to someone they did not properly vet. 100% of the liability should be on them, not the person who they claim had their "identity stolen"
the Liability for financial Fraud in the US is 180 degrees from where it should be.
Launching missiles at China may make you feel good, but it does not solve the root cause of the problem
"Fixing" takes a long time that does not mean one should not deter attacks on the current system. How does one respond to a broken legacy software system that can be taken advantage of? You restrict the actions that can be performed on that system until it is replaced.
No the response from me, internally is, is how did they get in, how can I plug that hole, and how can I make my systems more robust.
Your response is making china (the hacker) pay, in order to "prevent" future attacks, that is simply naive IMO nor it is a viable solution.
^ this is the deter I am talking about.
APT is on a different level than what you are used to. Also my question was rhetorical. Didn't actually mean for you to answer it. For you or your company it is not a viable solution since you don't have the resources.
But I, as a civilian am not qualified to answer that question. Nor do I want to answer that question.
This is not a perfect analogy, and I don't want you to think that geopolitics is a zero sum game. But, imagine two heavyweight boxers circling each other in a ring. They are bouncing on the balls of their feet. They are moving in what you would almost call a dance. Most of the "fight" is in their footwork, their positioning. When one does jab, the other blocks, or moves out of the way, or takes the hit. Sometimes they counter. Sometimes they punch. This fight goes on for a long, long time. It is not tit for tat. They both want to win.
What you are saying is "That boxer needs to jab back, because the other boxer jabbed at him."
I think it is best for the population on the other side to feel that as well which is why I prefer an electronic counter attack. We need deterrence. If China was to "jab", let them use other means of interaction that doesn't make us want to attack them physically. The more people who are affected financially by this, the more the call for a physical deterrence whether we agree with people's feelings or not.