We recently wrote how some special interests have been playing up the idea that there’s some sort of cyberwar going on that the US is losing. Of course, there have been similar claims going back for a decade, without anything to support it. Are there state-supported hackers breaking into computers of other countries? Absolutely. Does that reach the level of “cyberwar”? Not at all. At best its a bit of espionage and maybe a tiny bit of sabotage, but escalating it to the cyberwar level only is good for companies trying to sell “solutions.” Thankfully, it sounds like there’s actually some sanity in the White House over this, as the top cybersecurity adviser to the president, Howard Schmidt, is playing down the whole “cyberwar” rhetoric in an interview with Wired:
“There is no cyberwar,” Schmidt told Wired.com in a sit-down interview Wednesday at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco.“I think that is a terrible metaphor and I think that is a terrible concept,” Schmidt said. “There are no winners in that environment.”
Instead, Schmidt seems to be focused on the real issue: espionage. Hopefully, Schmidt’s view prevails, and other politicians aren’t swept into the moral panic around a non-existent “cyberwar.”
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