Ethics and Cyber Warfare

From North Korea's recent attacks on Sony to perpetual news reports of successful hackings and criminal theft cyber conflict has emerged as a major topic of public concern. Yet even as attacks on military civilian and commercial targets have escalated there is not yet a clear set of ethical guidelines that apply to cyber warfare. Indeed like terrorism cyber warfare is commonly believed to be a war without rules. Given the prevalence cyber warfare developing a practical moral code for this new form of conflict is more important than ever. <p/>In <em>Ethics and Cyber Warfare </em> internationally-respected ethicist George Lucas delves into the confounding realm of cyber conflict. Comparing state-sponsored hacktivism to the transformative impact of irregular warfare in conventional armed conflict Lucas offers a critique of legal approaches to governance and outlines a new approach to ethics and just war reasoning. Lucas draws upon the political philosophies of Alasdair MacIntyre John Rawls and J�rgen Habermas to provide a framework for understanding these newly-emerging standards for cyber conflict and ultimately presents a professional code of ethics for a new generation of cyber warriors. <p/>Lucas concludes with a discussion of whether preemptive self-defense efforts - such as the massive government surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden - can ever be justified addressing controversial topics such as privacy anonymity and public trust. Well-reasoned and timely <em>Ethics and</em> <em>Cyber Warfare</em> is a must-read for anyone with an interest in philosophy ethics or cybercrime.<br>