Military Review English Edition May-June 2014 | Page 42

unless corporations have some protection from
liability or losing their competitive edge, they are
unlikely to work together voluntarily. Legal protections need to be codified by Congress, but Congress
has not passed any cybersecurity legislation since
2002. On 12 February 2013, President Obama
issued an executive order named “Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity” as a stopgap measure to shield businesses from antitrust litigation if
they voluntarily share data with their competitors.6
Even when Congress does act, participation will
almost certainly remain voluntary on the part of the
civilian-owned economic infrastructure.
The care and feeding of the government cybersecurity apparatus (including affiliated contractors)
will almost certainly enable us to gain and maintain
contact with the cyberthreat, but that apparatus will
unlikely be able to seize the initiative from the
enemy. It appears that we are coming at the problem
like a bull in a china shop. Solving the problem will
require something more.
The defining characteristic of the World Wide
Web is that it is worldwide; the very strength of

the Internet is its international character. That is
precise ǒF