Making Rules for Cyber Warfare

Mar 22, 2013 at 11:23 AM by Paden Hall

A new handbook about the rules of cyber warfare, written by 20 legal experts working in conjunction with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the US Cyber Command, is set to come out later this week. The book is set to be published next week. The book goes into detail on what these people believe to be considered attacks through hacking. The book has many rules, some new rules and others adapted from older ones to fit the new age of technology warfare.
The interesting part of the book is that the book defines what is considered a cyber attack and what isn’t, what structures are ‘safe’ areas that if even the slightest damage is done to those buildings, its considered cyber warfare from there on out. They also set out rules for the proper response to cyber attacks should be, one of them being that if a hacker hacks into a traffic signal, and changes the color of the lights causing an accident, and some one dies, then that nation that was attacked has every right to kill the hacker. They also have been talking about cyber warfare crimes and what constitutes warfare crimes and what are the appropriate responses.

Is this alright? Can people just create rules that everyone should follow by for cyber warfare?
Is this too extreme?
What if one nation that follows this handbook is attacked by a nation who doesn’t? is the attacked nation still allowed to take action?

Links:
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/the-tallinn-manual-to-lay-down-cyberwar-rules-in-the-wild-wild-west-internet-344768
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/18/rules-cyberwarfare-nato-manual
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/21/4130740/tallin-manual-on-the-international-law-applicable-to-cyber-warfare#.UUrf03DXfxc.reddit