Dans Mon Catalogue

eBook

English language

Published by London: Hurst/Oxford University Press.

ISBN:: 9780199330638

(1 review)

"Cyber war is coming," announced a land-mark RAND report in 1993. In 2005, the U.S. Air Force boasted it would now fly, fight, and win in cyberspace, the "fifth domain" of warfare. This book takes stock, twenty years on: is cyber war really coming? Has war indeed entered the fifth domain?

Cyber War Will Not Take Place cuts through the hype and takes a fresh look at cyber security. Thomas Rid argues that the focus on war and winning distracts from the real challenge of cyberspace: non-violent confrontation that may rival or even replace violence in surprising ways.

The threat consists of three different vectors: espionage, sabotage, and subversion. The author traces the most significant hacks and attacks, exploring the full spectrum of case studies from the shadowy world of computer espionage and weaponised code. With a mix of technical detail and rigorous political analysis, the book explores some key …

"Cyber war is coming," announced a land-mark RAND report in 1993. In 2005, the U.S. Air Force boasted it would now fly, fight, and win in cyberspace, the "fifth domain" of warfare. This book takes stock, twenty years on: is cyber war really coming? Has war indeed entered the fifth domain?

Cyber War Will Not Take Place cuts through the hype and takes a fresh look at cyber security. Thomas Rid argues that the focus on war and winning distracts from the real challenge of cyberspace: non-violent confrontation that may rival or even replace violence in surprising ways.

The threat consists of three different vectors: espionage, sabotage, and subversion. The author traces the most significant hacks and attacks, exploring the full spectrum of case studies from the shadowy world of computer espionage and weaponised code. With a mix of technical detail and rigorous political analysis, the book explores some key questions: What are cyber weapons? How have they changed the meaning of violence? How likely and how dangerous is crowd-sourced subversive activity? Why has there never been a lethal cyber attack against a country's critical infrastructure? How serious is the threat of "pure" cyber espionage, of exfiltrating data without infiltrating humans first? And who is most vulnerable: which countries, industries, individuals?

1 edition

piks3l reviewed Cyber War Will Not Take Place by Thomas Rid

Good for the time, still something good to keep around

4 stars

This book is an overview of the (at the time) current incidents linked to cyber infrastructure. It also tries to introduce classic philosophical concepts about the "cyberspace". Indeed, at the time of writing that book (2013), cyberwar was present in every mouth and especially in fearmongering terms such as "cyber 9-11" or "cyber Pearl Harbor" but lack conceptual understanding.

Before diving into the large number of examples, the author sets the base concepts for war (Clausewitz), espionage, sabotage and subversion. Reading this book almost 10 years later brings a lot of perspective and truth to the assumptions of the author. As a lot of them remained true, one can reflect about what cyberwar actually is. Cyberwar don't create "cyber deaths" and until now no known incidents lead to the direct deaths of humans (among others). Further conceptual work and time must pass before we grasp the specific nature of cyberwar. …

This book is an overview of the (at the time) current incidents linked to cyber infrastructure. It also tries to introduce classic philosophical concepts about the "cyberspace". Indeed, at the time of writing that book (2013), cyberwar was present in every mouth and especially in fearmongering terms such as "cyber 9-11" or "cyber Pearl Harbor" but lack conceptual understanding.

Before diving into the large number of examples, the author sets the base concepts for war (Clausewitz), espionage, sabotage and subversion. Reading this book almost 10 years later brings a lot of perspective and truth to the assumptions of the author. As a lot of them remained true, one can reflect about what cyberwar actually is. Cyberwar don't create "cyber deaths" and until now no known incidents lead to the direct deaths of humans (among others). Further conceptual work and time must pass before we grasp the specific nature of cyberwar.

The political concepts of this book are the most interesting part as the examples are today a bit dated and more recent one are well covered by books like "Sandworm" (2019) and subversion online has been extend studied in the past 10 years (from Castells to Coleman).

However, it seems that a lot of philosophical work is still needed to understand what "cyberwar" means in 2022. Is it a part of "real" war? Is it something totally different? What about cyber espionage and cyber sabotage?

The current war in Ukraine and its currently "missing cyberwar" (comparing it to Sandworm for example) does bring these questions into perspective. "Cyber war will not take place" remains a good read to everyone interested in those questions, although a lot of the examples seem outdated today they remain relevant (Aramco hack, Operation Aurora, APT1 etc.).