We must persuade Beijing that it should do it as it would be done by in cyber space. Rules are much better than retaliation. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review. 
Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week revealed that Australia’s major political parties were the target of a recent cyber attack. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) identified a malicious intrusion in the Parliament House computer network. It was later discovered that the Liberal, Labor
Last week the Australian government successfully passed contentious national security legislation granting security and law enforcement agencies greater access to the encrypted messages of suspected criminals.
The Telecommunications and Other Legislation (Assistance and Access) Bill is part of a
The digital revolution is fundamentally a story of prosperity, of growth through disruptive business models, the opening of new markets, and of sustainable and inclusive development enabled by digital technologies. But these benefits are not guaranteed. We must work collectively – domestically,
Much of the reaction to Malcolm Turnbull’s press conference last Friday has cast his comments as the latest, and possibly worst example of political technological illiteracy. And just another instance of anti-technology bluster and rhetoric without any firm policy foundation.
Based on the level
As the Trump Administration starts ticking off targets for its first 100 days, the fallout from the Russian influence operation on the US presidential election is still working its way around the world. Multiple Western countries (mostly in Europe but also Australia) are grappling with how
For all the unique and strange precedents set by this election, few could have foreseen that a new stage in cyber conflict would be one of them.
In the lead-up to election day in the US, officials are scrambling to signpost that any cyber attack that affects the election could result in
The Asia Pacific is the most dynamic digital landscape in the world, home to the fastest adopters of new technologies and the largest concentration of mobile and social media users. An escalation in online activism, changing cyber dynamics, developments in digital diplomacy and the
The Asia Pacific is the most dynamic digital landscape in the world, home to the fastest adopters of new technologies and the largest concentration of mobile and social media users. An escalation in online activism, changing cyber dynamics, developments in digital diplomacy and the exploitation of
Another day sees yet another announcement of a major cyber breach at a government agency, this time unfortunately on Australian soil at the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).
While specific information about the attack has not been revealed, it bears all the hallmarks of Chinese cyber methods and harks
Last Thursday, The Australian newspaper ran an editorial, 'Strengthening links with China'. This followed its front-page coverage of the visit to Canberra by China's Chief of General Staff Fang Fenghui, for annual talks with Chief of Defence Force Mark Binskin and Department of Defence Secretary
Fergus Hanson is author of Internet Wars: The Struggle for Power in the 21st Century. This is the final installment in a series. Part 1 examined economic cyber espionage; part 2 cyber war; and part 3 citizen activism Internet mythology suggests the online world is the sort of free market paradise
The Asia Pacific is the most dynamic digital landscape in the world, home to the fastest adopters of new technologies and the largest concentration of mobile and social media users. An escalation in online activism, changing cyber dynamics, developments in digital diplomacy and the exploitation of
Fergus Hanson is author of Internet Wars: The Struggle for Power in the 21st Century. This post is part of a series that will also examine citizen activism and control of economic chokepoints.
It was only mid-2009 when the US Secretary of Defense ordered the establishment of a dedicated Cyber
Fergus Hanson is author of Internet Wars: The Struggle for Power in the 21st Century. This post on economic cyber espionage (parts of which were also included in an article for the Brookings Institution) is part of a series that will also examine citizen activism, control of economic chokepoints,
By Cheng Lim and Jack Maher. Cheng Lim leads the cyber security initiative at King & Wood Mallesons. Last year Jack Maher completed a Master of Chinese Law at Tsinghua University while working in the firm's Bejing office.
China's internet czar Lu Wei, President Xi Jinping and Facebook Chief
Having a Catholic Pope and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China descend on Washington at almost exactly the same time helped illustrate something important about diplomacy. When staging a high-level state visit, there is a simple choice: emphasise either the head or the heart. This
The Asia Pacific is the most dynamic digital landscape in the world, home to the fastest adopters of new technologies and the largest concentration of mobile and social media users. An escalation in online activism, changing cyber dynamics, developments in digital diplomacy and the exploitation of
Thanks to advances in digital technologies, open-source intelligence (OSINT) is playing an increasingly important role in the mix of intelligence collected by state and non-state actors. Now and then The Interpreter will publish OSINT links instead of the weekly Digital Asia links to capture the
Back in April, Fergus Hanson highlighted the glaring need for a global response to ISIS in the cyber domain, and welcomed the announcement of an $18 million initiative to counter extremist propaganda online from the Australian Government.
Last month Defence Minister Kevin Andrews announced the
The Asia Pacific is the most dynamic digital landscape in the world, home to the fastest adopters of new technologies and the largest concentration of mobile and social media users. An escalation in online activism, changing cyber dynamics, developments in digital diplomacy and the exploitation of
'It's not that laws aren't relevant' said MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte during the 1990s, 'it's that the nation-state is not relevant...The internet cannot be regulated.'
Negroponte's assessment has not aged well, but to be fair, he was not alone in his belief.
Digital activist
The Asia Pacific is the most dynamic digital landscape in the world, home to the fastest adopters of new technologies and the largest concentration of mobile and social media users. An escalation in online activism, changing cyber dynamics, developments in digital diplomacy and the exploitation of
There's an 'Uber for X', goes the little ditty, celebrating the ubiquitous infiltration of the online 'sharing economy.' It seems Uber's business model can be turned to virtually all our needs, and a global ecosystem of app buttons has popped up on our smartphones.
As in so many things, however,
When you look at the global response to the threat of ISIS, a glaring gap is the cyber domain.
The internet has been critical to the terrorist group's success. It allows it to communicate unfiltered to the rest of the world, for onward mass dissemination by the media. It helps the group radicalise
Over the past month, The Interpreter has hosted a debate on Australian defence strategy initiated by Alan Dupont's Lowy analysis paper, Full-Spectrum Defence.
The discussion so far has only glanced tangentially off the most brutal of the realities affecting defence strategy: the perpetually
This week’s Quick Comment podcast is with the new head of ANU’s National Security College and Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow, Professor Rory Medcalf, who last night delivered a speech in which he argued that Australia needs to rethink how it approaches and considers national security and
In this Analysis, Alan Dupont argues that successive Australian governments have failed to define an effective national defence strategy. Australia needs a defence strategy that counters threats across multiple domains, is based on more diverse regional defence relationships, and is underpinned by
The cyber attack on Sony Pictures by North Korea in response to the film The Interview (which opens in Australian cinemas today; see my review) came after a series of North Korean hacks of institutions in South Korea. It appears North Korea is improving its cyber capabilities and widening its target
It has been almost two months since The Interview was released online, but it is due to hit Australian cinemas tomorrow.
The critical consensus seems to be that the film is juvenile and mildly funny, a poor if necessary choice for the defence of artistic expression, but also possibly somewhat
As several participants in our debate have argued, nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) can have a positive effect on strategic stability in Asia and globally. But they do not exist in a vacuum. New military capabilities, and strategies that take advantage of them, are being developed and
The surprise recent decision of the European Court of Justice to make Google responsible for removing search result information demonstrates the ambiguous sovereignty of online data.
In recent years there has been a trend toward de-territorialisation of business and government operations, storing
Don't believe anything you read on the cyber espionage spat between US and China. Depending on who's talking, the US is a 'thief crying stop thief' and a 'mincing rascal'; or China's 'scale of commercial hacking is immense', perhaps the 'greatest transfer of wealth in history'.
After attending
On 19 May, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted five officers of People's Liberation Army (PLA) on charges of hacking the computers of six US entities to benefit China's state-owned enterprises. This marked the first 'criminal charges against known state actors for hacking,' according to
Revelations about mass intelligence gathering by the US and its allies serve the useful purpose of highlighting the need for, and proper role of, intelligence oversight in democracies. This essay provides a conceptual overview of some of the ideal types of democratic intelligence oversight.
It is little wonder that it was an Australian, Julian Assange, who set up the world's first secrecy leaking website, WikiLeaks. And it should be equally unsurprising that the world's greatest whistleblower is a US citizen, Edward Snowden.
The terms whistleblower and leaker are mistakenly used
It's 7:15am and you're in a conference room, the same room you sit in every working morning. At the head of the table sits the head of your country's domestic security service. Pick a country, any country. Into that room walks a group of analysts and field investigators, and they lay a new problem
The idea of cyberspace as a common global good has yet to find its place in Australia.
Ensuring that sea lanes remain open for navigation throughout the Indo-Pacific was a prominent concern in the last Defence White Paper. Australia's condemnation of the Chinese ADIZ in November 2013 indicates
America's military science lab DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is now spending $110 million 'to allow those with little or no hacking experience to engage in cyberwarfare', reports the technology website CNET. The goal is to help US military commanders launch cyber attacks '
This is part 3 of my email interview with Peter Singer, co-author of a new book called Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know (link takes you to the book's official website, which includes discussion questions and even a song list). Part 1 is here and part 2 is here.
SR: Is
This is part 2 of my email interview with Peter Singer, co-author of a new book called Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know (link takes you to the book's official website, which includes discussion questions and even a song list). Part 1 of the interview is here.
SR: Having
Brookings Institution scholar Peter Singer will be well known to many Interpreter readers for a number of books about the evolution of modern warfare, particularly Wired for War, his 2009 NY Times bestseller on the impact of robotics on warfare (here's an audio interview I did with Peter at the time
In an opinion piece in The Australian, Nonresident Fellow Alan Dupont writes that the threat to national security from cyber attacks is real and it is growing, seemingly unchecked
In an opinion piece in The Australian, Lowy Institute Non-resident Senior Fellow Alan Dupont writes that as the cost of electronic pilfering grows, Australia should become a repository of cyber security expertise
This Lowy Institute Analysis by Julienne McKay and Dr Katherine Lepani, exploring the role of demand-responsive mechanisms in health services delivery in Papua New Guinea, accompanies the Policy Brief, 'Revitalising Papua New Guinea's health system