I need to borrow your brain jars...

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

..just a few spoonfulls each would be bloody marvelous.

I'm currently writing a report on Cyber force and Cyber terrorism at international law - following the European Convention on Cyber crime. In order to follow the definition of 'terrorism' as endorsed by the general assembly, and 'force' for the purposes of Article 2 of the Geneva convention, I would like to come up with some plausable accounts of how cyber crime could cause mass terror and pose a SERIOUS threat to a state. I'm not talking about your stupid little teenage hack, but something with the potential to warrant a full scale military attack in self defence. While it is possible hacking in to military databases could be a serious problem, it might not instigate the kind of wide spread civilian terror needed to meet the general assembly's requirements.

In 'War, agression and self defence' Dinstein eludes to some scenarios where this could happen - eg computer managed railway and ventilation systems. But I think this is a pretty dull example. I'm sure we are all aware that with todays technology cyber crime could potentially create some pretty catastrophic situations, and Im hoping some of you might have actually thought a few through (not with the intention of acting on it of course!) - but just out of curiosity, fear or whatever - If so, I'd love you to share them with me.

Basically, what I want to know is can you envisage a situation where cyber crime would be of such a serious nature to justify war.

[Mudflap]

I'm clueless at the moment. But I will be pondering this.

[Billyman]

I don't know if you missed this (http://www.thehypertribe.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6194) but you may find it somewhat interesting.

[3MTA3]

If it fucked with the finances of big business or common folk...like attacking bank records and screwing up account balances...basically, anything that fucked with peoples money...that always pisses folks off...

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

Thanks for that Billyman - I had actually been looking for that very thread :)

Eatme - I was having that discussion with Torque earlier on. While I think fucking with peoples money would get everyones nose severely out of joint, Im not sure that it would justify a counterstrike on a large scale - Isn't it more likely that trade would simply be suspended until whatever problem was allowing access to the networks could be fixed? The thing with financial transactions is that they are generally traceable to a point in time and a source, so are relatively easy to trace and fix - it might take a bit of time, but with such an alternative available, I'm not sure full scale war would be acceptable at international law. I'm really not sure though.

Keep em coming :)

[Koliedrus]

An EMP bomb in a financial district perhaps? I think that would qualify.

(EMP = ElectroMagnetic Pulse)

Edit: you said you wanted a spoonful. There ya go ;)

[Cruise Director]

Everything's computerized now. Like EatME said, shut down the financial system first. Then attacking power grids and energy supplies would be another act to provoke a country.

[MrsKol]

If was done on a global scale. For instance, take out the financial districts of US, Britain (Europe), Japan, and Australia,
at the same time. Then the power grids and energy sources. Finally transportation. This would probably cause enough of a chaos that it would take major recovery time. While we are recovering, the terriorist would strike with something else.

For example, when 9/11 occurred, several business, including
airlines, went, and are now going bankrupt. Now if terrorists had gone a step further and took down the power grids and energy sources, especially for emergency crews, (fire, police, ambulance,
hospitals), and transportation, can you imagine the damage and chaos that would have occurred.

Just a thought off the top of my head.

[MrsKol]

I forgot to add the connection. The majority of financial, power and transportation is cyber connected.

[MAC]

just a spoonful of what?

http://perso.club-internet.fr/beamovclassics/features/mary_poppins.JPG

[Uberwonder]

Although it is not cyber related, one situation that we were very vulnerable in was the fire conditions we had all summer in the western half of the country.
Here in Arizona, two small fires were intentionally started that burned down two towns and almost 500,000 acres.
Oregon has a fire that is almost as large right now (fortunately it is basically contained).

For virtually no cost, terrorists could have swept through the west and torched a major amount of the country, including starting fires that would have taken out some major cities.
All of our fire fighting resources were focused on the Rodeo fire and if they had their shit together, they could have easily overwhelmed the west with a few gallons of gas.