Researchers create humanitarian law digital emblem for the Red Cross
ethz.ch
ethz.ch
The Red cross should not look for specific legislation so that any states that are foolish enough can argue their own assumed rights away and will have to take that risk if they want to take back the right the Red cross is taking by the same analogy.
Take that scenerio with the Red Cross and a new convention to treat government sponsored criminals as not allowed to attack the Red Cross. It is far less risky to act like they already have that protection and every state should punish a State that violates their existing promises under existing convention than to navigate the situation where a superpower does not ratify the new convention and claims retaliations and shaming are technically violations of their sovereignty.
For a state in the current situation to deny such analogies seems paradoxical to me.. The Internet was not the wild west it was supposed to be for everyone when it comes to their own advantage, but still as dangerous as the wild west due in large part to criminals that are connected to sovereign States and largely shielded using rights to war logic.
The problem is that it’s wildly implausible that there is such an emerging customary norm. And there really is no way to claim with a straight face that this sort of thing falls under the terms of the GCs. And the problem with making aggressive claims about customary norms is that IHL really only does work if people agree to make it work. The worst thing that could happen is to have countries not even pay IHL lip service.
But this all gets to the really, really hard but fundamental question of international law: enforcement. I was piqued by you originally using the term “legislation” just because the way we think about legislation, there is usually an executive to enforce it. That’s part of what makes it “law.” But there is no such thing in international law, and given how overwhelmingly powerful states continue to be, there won’t be in my lifetime. I love the idea of international law, but this is what makes it so slippery and difficult and frustrating.
But there is a legal mechanism for adding new emblems, which was used to add a "red crystal" in 2005 [1], and I imagine a similar mechanism could be used to add a digital emblem.
I think some people were confused why they were calling it an emblem. It’s an analogy to the protective emblems agreed in the GCs and APIII. But analogy alone won’t make this binding, and the ICRC knows that. This “technical solution” isn’t like a solution that solves the problem today. It’s the first step in showing that doing the work of another AP is possible and needed.
If you are a nation state hacker, you can also install the convenient chrome extension which will tell you if you are allowed to hack a website or not: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/adem-dns-checker/ik...
The point of this is not to make ICRC unhackable, the point is to make sure that 1) you can see you are specifically hacking protected communication 2) it's possible to prove to third party that you still continued with your war crimes business, because you either don't know better or don't care.
Unless you're American, since the US doesn't recognise the ICC.
I don't believe this dynamic exists online, for one, the belligerents are often in the shadows and don't depend or rely on any "community" or locality that might be benefiting from humanitarian work.
The only benefit this digital certificate might provide is prosecution grounds for harsher punishments, which isn't useless, but far from being a red cross or lion.
As to why the West chooses to instrumentalise humanitarian organisations, that's another discussion.
"The Russian Red Cross (RKK), together with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), will provide assistance to internally displaced persons in Donbass"
https://www.emergency-live.com/news/the-other-side-of-the-fi...
>to say nothing of the many countries in the Sahel
Red Cross in Mali: https://www.icrc.org/en/where-we-work/africa/mali
Red Cross in Niger: https://www.icrc.org/en/document/operational-update-niger-mo...
Could you explain further?
In other words, show me the Red Cross people who have lost their lives close to the lines of battle in the last 5-10-15 years and I’ll change my opinion. Otherwise, stuff like this just denotes laziness when it comes to investing in real IT security.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/02/10/5145078... - six killed in Afghanistan
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/two-red-cross-workers-k... - Two Red Cross workers killed in attack in western Mali
I think you might just not be well informed, combined with being too lazy to do a 2 minute web search "red cross workers killed".
I half expect you now to say "yeah, but it isn't that many people", which might be because it is a a WAR CRIME to kill Red Cross workers. Really, seriously smh.
> In other words, hacker software needs to automatically load and read the emblem, so it can recognise that it is accessing a system belonging to an organisation that is protected by international humanitarian law. And that needs to happen during the software’s first reconnaissance, before it does any damage to the system.
Hackers are going to look up the emblem "protected by international humanitarian law".
> Another key requirement is for the digital emblem to be managed in a decentralised way rather than by a central authority. States that are committed to international humanitarian law should be able to verify that a certain digital infrastructure on their territory is entitled to protection and therefore bears an emblem.
And when they say decentralised, they mean centralised: states "should be able to verify that a certain digital infrastructure".
PS Felix Linker is defining a new protocol for hackers to anonymously check whether infrastructure can be attacked... The theatre of war!
The covert inspection part is primarily through broadcast of the emblem through multiple channels (so it will go to many people interacting with the systems who didn't ask) so that the attacker will see the emblem passively without having to make a request for it that only attackers would make.
<< Digital Ambulance -- plz do not hack!!1 >>A nice name makes it easier to explain to laymen. This idea can not work unles they convince a lot of diplomatics to sign all the paperwork.
But as the sibling comment said, I also was looking for an image until I understood the implementation.
Rule 15. In the conduct of military operations, constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects. All feasible precautions must be taken to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
Disabling a hospital by attacking its IT obviously will lead to loss of life of injury and is thus, other factors notwithstanding, not permissible. If you attack power infrastructure (using bombs or by hacking, doesn't matter), that's probably also a war crime because it's indiscriminate and, among other things, affects hospital and other civilian infrastructure.
But maybe you have to ratify Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions for that to apply.
And we'll see how well they're enforced after a ratifying country has been hammering civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.