Cyberspace Cooperation

Cities around the globe are increasingly striving to become smarter. As they take on 21st century challenges — including the strain of growing populations, social tensions and environmental issues — with shrinking budgets and failing infrastructure, urban areas are turning to advanced information and communication technology (ICT) to help ease their burdens. Smart cities are the future.

Innovations such as cloud computing, the "internet of things," and artificial intelligence in automated vehicles or in smart sensors promise to enhance the quality of life for residents and commuters all over the world. These technologies stand to make services more efficient, promote economic development and improve sustainability. But the more cities use advanced ICT in their communities, the more vulnerable their infrastructure will become. To ensure cyber resilience in the cities of tomorrow, each metropolis will have to assess its competencies, capabilities, and capacities and invite local residents to participate in the effort.

The numerous examples of smart city initiatives underway cover a wide range of domains, including transportation, energy, public safety, environmental monitoring and waste management. London and Singapore, for example, use smart technology to manage traffic flows and avoid chronic congestion. The advent of self-driving cars will further increase road safety and average driving speeds. Smart lighting in Barcelona, Spain, meanwhile, adjusts brightness levels according to weather conditions and time of day. The technology not only ties into the city's sustainable energy plan, but it also improves public safety: City officials can turn street lights up in an instant to help emergency personnel respond to a traffic accident at night.

Of course, smart city initiatives are complex endeavors and depend on many stakeholders over an extended period of time to see them through. Investment is incremental in some applications: Cities may add smart technology only to existing infrastructure to ensure they can implement it quickly. Swiss authorities, for instance, intend to boost rail network capacity by up to 30 percent by hooking existing rail lines up to advanced data analytics and ICT. As a result, trains will travel more quickly, more frequently and more safely — all while conserving energy. Other projects require a greater investment of time and money. A private consortium, also in Switzerland, plans to build a fully automated nationwide underground logistics system in the country by 2030; the first 64-kilometer (40-mile) segment alone will cost upward of $100 million.

Read here the full commentary on Stratfor.

Photo: "”Mini Stack” Interchange of Interstate 1" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by squeaks2569

Speaking to Washington Examiner, the EWI's cyberspace program chief said a proposal to ban Chinese telecom companies from U.S. government contracts would be "bad for business."

"My view, then and now, is it doesn't make sense to make procurement decisions based on the headquarters location of the company whose name is on the box,” said McConnell, a former top cyber official at the Department of Homeland Security

A number of Congress member are reportedly planning to introduce a bill to prohibit Chinese firms, including Huawei and ZTE, from getting government contracts due to cybersecurity concerns.

“All of these products are from the global supply chain. All come from the same place as Huawei," said McConnell. "It doesn't do anything for cybersecurity, and other countries will discriminate against U.S. products. You end up limiting our ability to sell American products into those markets."

Read the full interview.

The Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC) conducted its fifth meeting in Lille, France, on January 25, 2018.

“We had a most productive session, deepening our commitment to international peace, security, and stability, exploring means of enhancing the general availability and integrity of the Internet, and setting out priorities for 2018,” said Marina Kaljurand, the GCSC’s Chair.

The one-day meeting produced a commitment to elaborate on the “Call to Protect the Public Core of the Internet” which the Commission issued at its November meeting in New Delhi.

“The Call to Protect is generating support from a variety of national and international public and private sector organizations,” said Michael Chertoff, GCSC Co-Chair. “We decided to increase buy-in by further explaining the implications of this foundational policy.” The Commissioners also examined the ways to promote the norm in capitals and board rooms around the world as well as with other international bodies.

The Commission charted its agenda for the coming year, including developing international norms to reduce the danger from technical vulnerabilities in information and communications technology (ICT), protect electoral systems, prevent the takeover of civilian consumer devices for offensive purposes, and discourage offensive cyber activity by private sector entities.

Finally, the Commission approved funding for six research proposals in response to the GCSC Call for Research issued in December 2017. The research will help inform the Commission’s deliberations.

The Commission selected Lille as its venue in order to participate in the 10th International Cybersecurity Forum. The GCSC co-chairs provided the Forum with valuable perspective on avenues to achieve international consensus on policies that will increase cyberspace stability and security. Other commissioners, advisors, and members of the management board and secretariat participated in panels discussing hacking back, international cooperation in capacity building and the Balkanization of the Internet.

The GCSC will convene in May 2018 on the margins of the GLOBSEC Forum in Bratislava, Slovakia. In the run-up to this meeting, the GCSC welcomes input from other organizations and institutions that are concerned with norms of responsible behavior and international cyberspace security and stability. Comments may be sent to info@cyberstabililty.org or cyber@hcss.nl.

Click here to learn more.

Photo: "13th annual Cyber Defense Exercise_04" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by West Point - The U.S. Military Academy

The much-awaited white paper on the proposed data protection regime, following the SC judgement in August 2017, that underlined the need for data protection laws to protect the privacy of individuals, was released by the government last month.

The judgement recognizes the role of data-driven innovation (DDI) for the growth of economies, and for job creation. But it emphasises that the data so collected be utilised for legitimate purposes.

The white paper proposes a data protection framework based on the following seven principles: technology agnosticism, holistic application (both to private and public sectors), informed consent, data minimisation, controller accountability, structured enforcement, and deterrent penalties.

Click to read the full article on Economic Times.

On December 14, Director of EWI Office in the Russian Federation Vladimir Ivanov participated in the XV Scientific Conference of the International Research Consortium of Information Security, held at the Reception House of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and sponsored by Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, a leading Russian foreign affairs diplomatic journal. This annual event was devoted to information security in the context of the development of the digital economy, mechanisms for the implementation of norms, principles and rules for responsible behavior of states in the ICT environment, as well as the impact of information technologies on strategic stability. The event was attended by diplomats, security officials, academics and experts from Russia and abroad.

In his introductory remarks, a co-chair of the meeting Dr. Vladislav Sherstyuk, Director of the Institute for Information Security Issues with the Moscow State University (IISI) favorably assessed the outcomes of a multi-year productive partnership between IISI and EWI particularly emphasizing the value of the Joint U.S.-Russia Critical Terminology Foundations Report in providing guidelines on how to resolve the lingering international controversy on the development of universal norms of responsible behavior in cyberspace. Building on Dr. Sherstyuk’s idea, Ivanov dwelled on cultural and institutional differences between Russia and the United States, arguing that many of the current tensions in bilateral relations, including specifically the cyber domain, are rooted in mutually poor understanding of the political language, culture and national institutions of each other, and could be mitigated through more intense dialogue and more attentive listening to each other. Ivanov also focused on the work EWI had conducted in 2017 with the variety of Russian partners including IISI, the Russian International Affairs Council, the Moscow State Institute for International Relations, the Russian Internet Governance Forum and others.

He also reported on the first initiatives of the newly established Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace launched in February 2017 by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, together with the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) and EWI. It has a strong potential, he said, to support United Nations efforts in the area of setting advanced norms and confidence-building measures in cyberspace, particularly through helping improve coordination between technical experts, policy-makers and private sector leaders globally.

On November 16-17, 2017, the China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS), the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) and the East West Institute (EWI) co-hosted the first Joint China-India-U.S. Trilateral on Cyberspace Cooperation at VIF headquarters in New Delhi. The two-day, Track 2 dialogue brought together a diverse set of cyber experts, former government officials, and business leaders to discuss some of the most pressing cyberspace issues of common interest.

Major topics included cooperation to tackle cyber crime and constructively deal with other cyber incidents, strategic stability and norms of behavior in cyberspace. Recommendations included creating new pragmatic multilateral mechanisms for cooperation among public and private sector stakeholders, working with regional forums, and advancing commonly accepted basic norms of behavior in cyberspace.

The participants agreed to continue discussions over the months ahead and to meet in person in China in 2018.

Photo credit: "Rootkit code with keyboard" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Christiaan Colen