GA-DISEC Study Guide

C Terrorism
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President University Model United Nations

{Workshop}

President University Model United Nations

Topic Area: Cyber-terrorism

Welcome to United Nations General Assemblys first committee, the Disarmament and International Committee (DISEC). Here we are going to discuss matters concerning our most important goal as a UN member: world peace! Yes, it is our mandate to keep the world secure as well as to disarm it so that we can make peace as perpetual as possible. Although Security Council deals with such issue too, they are not as representative at us. IN DISEC all 192 member countries can vote and contribute to the resolution, representing the voice of all. The agenda for today is cyber terrorism. Living so close with internet our society might not realize how dangerous internet can be. We update information every second and every second too, our information is viewed by billions of people in the world. So the problem is some of those people might be capable of or intent to perform an act of cyber terrorism. Cyber terrorism is an activity that uses cyberspace and information technology to aid in terrorist activities. It can also be defined as premeditated, politically motivated attacks against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data which result in violence against non-combatant targets by sub-national group. Indeed how the definition varies may make it hard for us to set a parameter for this council. But at least, we all have agreed that cyber terrorism is different from cybercrime although they are similar. Cyber terrorism, unlike a mere cybercrime, involves politically motivated actions that are meant to influence a certain audience, often through fear. So far, we could probably conclude that cyber terrorism is a more extreme, more politically-targeted, form of cybercrime.

PREVIOUS ATTACKS
The first known case of that can be justified as cyber terrorism happens in 1999. A serverdisabling attack on companies with an East Timor domain name occurs during their conflict with Indonesia. It was known in the end that the attacks were mostly caused by those who did not favor their independence. The second known case happens during the 2006 war between Israel and the terrorist group Hezbollah, in which Hezbollah employed some Russian hackers to attack Israels defense system. In 2009, there were coordinated cyber attacks against US and South Korean financial institutions, newspapers, and intelligence services and North Korea was suspected as the one who caused the attack.

CURRENT SITUATION
Different Capabilities on Content Control Content control is often done by states to ensure that their internet is free from radical elements and to prevent terrorist groups from gaining support through the web. Not all country has the same scale of operations, though. For example, the United States is not performing it as rigid as China. Yet to what extent a state could perform a content control policy is limited by arguments of Human rights, according to the Universal Declaration of human rights, every human has the right to seek, receive, and impart information. Some nations do not have any sort of content controls, due to lack of infrastructure, lack of knowledge, or extremely liberal policy. One the other hand, some countries tightly censor the internet. These differences in policies are troublesome for nations that would like to have uniform standards set in place in order to govern the internet. Vulnerabilities There are numerous parts of the worldwide infrastructure that are vulnerable to cyber attack. Currently, most nations ability to withstand these attacks is weak at best. Vulnerabilities exist in almost every facet of everyday existence. In modernized nations, almost every part of

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society relies on, or is connected to cyberspace. This level of interconnectedness gives terrorists the opportunity to strike the heart of a country from the other side of the world. International Cooperation Until now not much has been done against the problem of cyber terrorism. International actions do not provide a solid infrastructure that international community can use to protect itself from the threat of cyber terrorism. Individual nations and blocks such as the Council of Europe have agreed to certain principle, but these are powerless to attack the roots of the problems. Currently cyber terrorism are known to congregate in certain regions of the world, most of which are away from the influence of western nations.

PAST INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS

Convention on Cybercrime Created by the council of Europe in November of 2001, and came into force in July of 2004. Currently 15 states have signed and ratified the convention while another 28 have signed but not ratified the convention. The working group on Internet governance (Internet Governance Forum) Established in 2003 by the world summit on the information society, The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) in a UN backed organization, group was focused on making proposals on the subject of internet. United Nations Resolutions There have been a number of resolutions on the topic, the latest of which was resolution 64/211 in 2010. This resolution attempted to create a global culture of cyber security and find ways to protect global infrastructure from harm.

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BLOCK POSITION

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USA The United States best interest is to ensure that there is a global culture of cyber security as mentioned in UN resolution 64/211. With regards to content control, the United States has a more liberal posture. Though the US will not tolerate websites that actively aid terrorism, there is a strong tradition of free speech. Any sort of resolution that seeks an outright ban to terrorist websites would be against the spirit of the United States foreign policy. Russia The Russian Federation is an advocate for a persons right to use and access information freely. However, Russian law will not allow for propaganda that serves to foment social, racial, national or religious hatred and strife. The Russian government believes in bolstering information infrastructure in order to increase the utilization of informational resources. China The Peoples Republic of China has a strong stance against preventing cyber security threats. They are a proponent of preventing harmful information from causing instability in the region, which means they will censor such information. Any efforts to curtail these operations should not be viewed favorably. Middle East Due to the recent instability in the Middle East a number of terrorist organizations have hosted themselves in region. The Middle Eastern countries should focus on mitigating this threat, while also protecting national sovereignty. Though these organizations do threaten the governments in this region, excessive foreign intervention will have negative consequences. Africa Africa only accounts for 3,9 % of world internet users, with only 6,7 % of people in Africa with access to the internet. This lags compared to the 27,7% in the rest of the world. However, Africa is still subject to cyber attacks, particularly in the communications industry. Europe

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The European Convention on Cybercrime spells out a fair amount of Europes stance towards the issue. In short, they want a strong cyber security infrastructure while also mitigating the threat of racist and xenophobic elements. However, in Eastern Europe, this region should especially seek provisions that seek to prevent state sponsored cyber attacks from occurring. Asia (China excluded) There has been relatively little action from this region in terms of major conventions. However as mentioned previously, nations have made agreements among each other on order to limit cyber terrorism.

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What type of content should be restricted from the Internet? What are the mechanisms of restriction? Which to restrict and which are not? What are the mechanisms of sanction and/or penalty to belligerent states? How do security proponent countries able to continue enforcing constructive acts against cyber-terrorism? 5. How would international society work together to create equal capabilities between developed and developing countries in ensuring cyber security?

QARMA (Questions a Resolution Must Answer)

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