The role of academics --- I believe that, in the topic of cyberwar, Academia and media can play a role that ultimately makes the debate muddier, more confusing and arbitrary. For diplomats, policy-makers, military and other groups, an incident should be carefully measured and assessed in its impact. No one wants to jump the gun and say "it's war" because that opens a Pandora's box. As we saw here in some of our colleagues' comments, there's a caution associated with the use of "cyberwar". Meanwhile, for academics and media the idea of a cyberwar is fascinating. It's right there in the intersection of science fiction and reality. It's a fertile ground for catastrophic predictions and alarmist attitudes. I once attended an Internet Governance event where, on the topic of cyberwar, a very senior and experienced policy maker showed a short movie which told the story of a fictional cyberwar scenario. In it a government or terrorist organisation released a wave of small drones that flew around a city. Using face recognition they were seeking specific people that had participated in a protest. They would then crash against that person's face and detonate a small bomb that would kill them instantly. This very senior policy maker was most closely associated with civil society, and he highlighted that this scenario could happen "AT ANY MOMENT NOW" and we had to do something. This shows very well the kind of panic some people are trying to instill, often with their own goals and biases.

Source author: Gustavo Paiva gdp.direito@gmail.com