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This chapter addresses cyber proxies and offensive cyber operations. The market of cyber force is a complex and dynamic relationship between the state and actors detached from the state that can target a third party beyond a state’s border with unprecedented ease. Only hacking, also known as ‘remote cyber operations’ in the military bureaucracy's vernacular, makes global reach possible at such low cost. Research identifies three main types of proxy relationships between a state and non-state actors: (i) delegation, (ii) orchestration, and (iii) sanctioning. How to manage effectively both proxies and the market for cyber capabilities, both tools and services to the degree they can be separated, is not only of interest for academic scholarship but also for practitioners and policymakers. While a state may face significant challenges in affecting another state’s proxy relationships, it can exercise greater control over its own relationships with cybersecurity companies, hacktivists, and those breaking the law either at home or abroad.

Over 30 countries are pursuing offensive cyber capabilities, Director of U.S. Intelligence James Clapper testified in 2016.1 That’s a fivefold increase compared to only six years earlier when the U...

Cyber Mercenaries explores the secretive relationships between states and hackers. As cyberspace has emerged as the new frontier for geopolitics, states have become entrepreneurial in their sponsorship, deployment, and exploitation of hackers as proxies to project power. Such modern-day mercenaries and privateers can impose significant harm undermining global security, stability, and human rights. These state-hacker relationships therefore raise important questions about the control, authority, and use of offensive cyber capabilities. While different countries pursue different models for their proxy relationships, they face the common challenge of balancing the benefits of these relationships with their costs and the potential risks of escalation. This book examines case studies in the United States, Iran, Syria, Russia, and China for the purpose of establishing a framework to better understand and manage the impact and risks of cyber proxies on global politics.

Les Etats-Unis ont acquis une influence croissante au sein du cyberespace et y ont donc toujours joue un role de premier plan. Pourtant, les puissances emergentes, dont les BRICS (Bresil, Russie, Inde, Chine, Afrique du Sud), contestent de plus en plus fortement l’ordre etabli. En 2011, Chine et Russie ont soumis a l’Organisation des Nations unies une proposition conjointe sur la securite des informations. Depuis leur declaration de Brasilia en 2003, Inde, Bresil et Afrique du Sud s’interessent de plus en plus a la societe de l’information. Ces initiatives demontrent que le cyberespace est de plus en plus dispute. Cependant, cette divergence reste a expliquer. Les puissances emergentes contestent-elles le role des Etats-Unis en raison de leurs interets nationaux et de leur empressement a maximiser leur securite ? Ou des facteurs tels que valeurs et structures politiques expliqueraient-ils les differences de trajectoires par rapport a cette hegemonie ? Cet article examine les politiques etrangeres des BRICS, de 1995 a ce jour, afin d’expliquer l’influence de l’histoire specifique a chaque pays, du type de systeme politique, de meme que l’augmentation des pressions de la societe civile.

The USA developed and has therefore historically played a lead role in cyberspace. Yet rising powers, including brics , have been increasingly challenging the established regime. China and Russia submitted a joint proposal on information security to the United Nations in 2011. India, Brazil, and South Africa have been focusing on the information society since their 2003 Brasilia Declaration. These initiatives demonstrate that cyberspace has become hotly contested. However, there is still a need to explain this divergence. Are rising powers challenging the USA because of their national interests, the urge to maximise their security, or do factors such as values and political structures explain the different trajectories vis-a-vis the hegemon? This article examines the foreign policies of brics from 1995 to date, explaining the influence of different path-dependent origins, of the systemic shift and the type of political system, together with rising civil society pressure.

Following reports of foreign government surveillance starting in June 2013, senior officials and public figures in Europe have promoted proposals to achieve “technological sovereignty”. This paper provides a comprehensive mapping and impact assessment of these proposals, ranging from technical ones, such as new undersea cables, encryption, and localized data storage, to non-technical ones, such as domestic industry support, international codes of conduct, and data protection laws. The analysis focused on the technical proposals reveals that most will not effectively protect against foreign surveillance. Ultimately, the security of data depends primarily not on where it is stored and sent but how it is stored and transmitted. In addition, some proposals could negatively affect the open and free Internet or lead to inefficient allocation of resources. Finally, proposals tend to focus on the transatlantic dimension, neglecting the broader challenge of foreign surveillance.

With the Arab Spring, journalists and academics debated the impact of social media on events that led to it. Social media has decentralized how information is spread by bypassing traditional media ...

This paper describes important engineering features relating to the seismic evaluation of a school building system in southern Indiana. This evaluation is the first step in identifying deficiencies in the school’s seismic force resisting system and may ultimately be a reference for retrofitting the structure to be in compliance with current design standards. This paper is intended to provide an introduction to the engineering challenges of seismic retrofitting of school structures in the Midwest, with particular reference to the Glenwood Middle School located in Evansville, Indiana. To this end, the paper presents the numerical modeling and analyses to establish a retrofitting scheme that would provide a structurally stable system under seismic loading conditions.