Hacker News Reader

Comment by rawnlq | Hacker News Reader

Hypothetically, if another "U.S." company with higher economical consequences got cyberattacked, would it be considered an act of war? For example if Facebook got shutdown for a few days/weeks. Or does it have to be military/government/infrastructure related tech?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare#Cyberwarfare_in_th... "The new United States military strategy makes explicit that a cyberattack is casus belli just as a traditional act of war."

View on HN

It most likely wouldn't be considered an act of war, for several reasons. Most cyber-attacks are difficult to trace to a source, and even when they are traced, it's basically impossible to prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) that the attack was state-sponsored. Countries let more serious transgressions slide, because wars are costly and they cause orders of magnitude more damage than any cyberattack.

In the grand scheme of things, economic damage resulting from cyber-espionage or cyber-sabotage is regarded -- or at least should be regarded -- as a cost of doing business on the Internet. Companies should treat DDoS attacks the way banks treat robberies: inevitable and expected. And just like banks, they should simply buy insurance to cover the costs and damages.

I honestly feel that in this case we can say that beyond a reasonable doubt this is a state-sponsored attack. This is because of both the target and the fact that traffic is manipulated at the "great" firewall to initiate this attack.

To be considered an act of war the USA should have something to gain such as oil or destroying a small communist coutry.

So is shooting down an airliner (MH17), but you just don't declare war on another nuclear power if you want to see tomorrow.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com