If Chinese, Russian, Israeli and Iranian ministers were free to speak on the subject, the message would be much the same.
If you’re not worried, you have not been paying attention. Almost without realizing it, our societies have become hugely dependent on a functioning, reliable Internet.
Life would go on without it, but most people would be shocked by how difficult much of the routine business of living would become. It would be like being teleported back to the 1970s. Even a minor conflict could slow the global Internet to a crawl. So cyber-war is a bit like nuclear war, in that even a minor outbreak threatens everyone’s life and welfare.
In those circumstances, isn’t it time we thought about devising treaties to regulate it? We need something analogous to the 1925 Geneva Protocol to the Hague Convention, which prohibited chemical and biological weapons. And we need to start now.
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