[Infowarrior] - Cyber Perfidy

[Richard Forno]

Cyber Perfidy

Neil C. Rowe

Department of Computer Science

U.S. Naval Postgraduate School

Monterey, California, United States

ncrowe at nps.edu
 
Abstract—Perfidy is the impersonation of civilians during armed conflict. It is generally outlawed by the laws of war such as the Geneva Conventions as its practice makes wars more dangerous for civilians. Cyber perfidy can be defined as malicious software or hardware masquerading as ordinary civilian software or hardware. We argue that it is also banned by the laws of war in cases where such cyber infrastructure is essential to normal civilian activity. This includes tampering with critical parts of operating systems and security software. We discuss possible targets of cyber perfidy, possible objections to the notion, and possible steps towards international agreements about it.

This paper appeared in the Routledge Handbook of War and Ethics as chapter 29, ed. N. Evans, 2013.

Index terms—laws of war, cyberspace, perfidy, cyberattacks, cyberweapons, impersonation, product tampering, operating systems, software

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http://faculty.nps.edu/ncrowe/cyberperfidy.htm