Scaling the Great Firewall

"It seems a day doesn't go by without reports of cyber attacks, calls for reform and action. President Barack Obama discussed the issue in his State of the Union address. Mandiant, a cybersecurity consultancy, has issued a report detailing the activities of a group it alleges is affiliated to the People's Liberation Army of China and responsible for infiltrating over 100 organisations within the US.

The importance of cybersecurity has been affirmed at the highest levels of government, media and industry. Yet, there is no clear path forward. Illustrative of this difficulty is what some refer to as a "definitional issue": there isn't even international consensus on what "cybersecurity" means. Various actors have different conceptions, including a grab-bag of issues such as cybercrime, industrial espionage, cyberwarfare, protection of critical infrastructure, internet freedom, responsibility for assigning domain names and numbers.

In the US, a range of legislative and executive measures have been considered to deal with the proliferation of threats in cyberspace..."