cyberwar

Vice President Harris announced during her speech in London that the declaration has now been signed by US-aligned nations that include the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, and France. The 31 signatories do not include China or Russia, which alongside the US are seen as leaders in the development of autonomous weapons systems. China did join with the US in signing a declaration on the risks posed by AI as part of the AI Safety Summit coordinated by the British government.Deadly AutomationTalk of military AI often evokes…

Earlier this week, Microsoft claimed that it discovered a group of Chinese hackers had broken into some of its customers' email systems to gather intelligence. Now new reports suggest that the US commerce department secretary Gina Raimondo was among the group of senior US officials whose emails were hacked. Several victims in addition to the Commerce Department have acknowledged they were affected, including personnel at the State Department and US House of Representatives. The intrusion activity began in May and…

What are chemical pollutants doing to our bodies? It’s a timely question given that last week, people in Philadelphia cleared grocery shelves of bottled water after a toxic leak from a chemical plant spilled into a tributary of the Delaware River, a source of drinking water for 14 million people. And it was only last month that a train carrying a suite of other hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, unleashing an unknown quantity of toxic chemicals.There’s no doubt that we are polluting the planet. In…

Last Thursday, the US State Department outlined a new vision for developing, testing, and verifying military systems—including weapons—that make use of AI. The Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy represents an attempt by the US to guide the development of military AI at a crucial time for the technology. The document does not legally bind the US military, but the hope is that allied nations will agree to its principles, creating a kind of global standard for building…

In the weeks before two Japanese and Norwegian oil tankers were attacked, on June 13th, in the Gulf of Oman—acts which the United States attributes to Iran—American military strategists were planning a cyberattack on critical parts of that country’s digital infrastructure. According to an officer involved, who asked to remain anonymous, as Iran ramped up its attacks on ships carrying oil through the Persian Gulf—four tankers had been mined in May—and the rhetoric of the national-security adviser, John Bolton, became…

Ever since Russian forces started their all-out invasion in February, Ukraine has been hailed as an exemplar of how to defend against violent tyranny on the 21st-century battlefield. The country spun up an “IT Army” of volunteer hackers to take down Russian websites, used the Starlink satellite internet system to maintain communications as its own infrastructure was being destroyed, and launched a social media blitzkrieg to win support from around the world.By contrast, Russia’s leaders, despite having a far more powerful…

International humanitarian law—rules that apply during a conflict between nations—state that one can’t attack civilians or civilian infrastructure. That could matter in space too. “You cannot target a civilian object. You can only target military objectives, and then you have to identify what those things are. A hospital or a school is always protected, but a bridge or a communication center might sometimes be military and sometimes civilian,” says Cassandra Steer, an expert on space law and space security at the…