28
Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski
and then commercial issue has thus been transformed into a broader political and
social question of forging, expressing, and maintaining collective identities.
As this demographic shift occurs, the contests over cyberspace will take on a different hue as the center of gravity of the user base moves South and East, away from
the petri dish of experimentation out of which it emerged. The actors that represent
the majority of users today, stakeholders from the South, the developing world, and
the non-English segments of the net, will do more to shape the future of cyberspace
than any discussions at the Pentagon or in policy circles in North America and Europe.
To understand how and in what ways cyberspace will be characterized in years to come
we need to think beyond the beltway, beyond Silicon Valley, and into the streets of
Shanghai, Nairobi, and Tehran. The contests occurring in those spaces deserve our
attention today, if for no other reason than that they provide a glimpse of the types
of global issues that will drive cyberspace governance in the future.
Driver 3: The Dark Driver of Cyberspace Contestation — Cybercrime
A driver of cyberspace contestation, related in various ways to the previous two drivers,
is the massive growth of cybercrime. Although cybercrime has formed a hidden
shadow and a kind of evil doppelg ä nger to every step of the Internet ’ s long history
from its very origins, its growth has suddenly become explosive in recent years by
virtually any estimate. According to the security company Sophos, its global network
of labs received around 60,000 new malicious software (malware) samples every day
in the fi rst half of 2010; every 1.4 seconds of every day, a new malware sample arrives.
25
The reasons for this sudden surge in cybercrime can be connected back to the previous two drivers. Our expanding and constantly evolving communications ecosystem
of extensive social sharing of data, mobile networking from multiple platforms and
locations, and increasing reliance on “ clouds ” and social networking services operated
by thousands of companies of all shapes, sizes, and geographic locations has emerged
with such swiftness that organizations and individuals have yet to adapt proper security practices and policies. While convenient and fun, this environment is also a
dangerous brew and an opportunity structure ripe for crime and espionage to fl ourish.
A largely hidden and massively exploding ecosystem is parasitically thriving off of
insecure data-sharing practices and vulnerable browsers, servers, and Web sites.
Ever since the Internet emerged from the world of academia and into the worldof-the-rest-of-us, its growth trajectory has been shadowed by a gray economy that has
thrived on the opportunities for enrichment that an open, globally connected infrastructure has made possible. In the early years, cybercrime was clumsy, consisting
mostly of extortion rackets that leveraged blunt computer network attacks against
online casinos or pornography sites to extract funds from frustrated owners. Over
time, it has become more sophisticated, more precise: like muggings morphing into
Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski
and then commercial issue has thus been transformed into a broader political and
social question of forging, expressing, and maintaining collective identities.
As this demographic shift occurs, the contests over cyberspace will take on a different hue as the center of gravity of the user base moves South and East, away from
the petri dish of experimentation out of which it emerged. The actors that represent
the majority of users today, stakeholders from the South, the developing world, and
the non-English segments of the net, will do more to shape the future of cyberspace
than any discussions at the Pentagon or in policy circles in North America and Europe.
To understand how and in what ways cyberspace will be characterized in years to come
we need to think beyond the beltway, beyond Silicon Valley, and into the streets of
Shanghai, Nairobi, and Tehran. The contests occurring in those spaces deserve our
attention today, if for no other reason than that they provide a glimpse of the types
of global issues that will drive cyberspace governance in the future.
Driver 3: The Dark Driver of Cyberspace Contestation — Cybercrime
A driver of cyberspace contestation, related in various ways to the previous two drivers,
is the massive growth of cybercrime. Although cybercrime has formed a hidden
shadow and a kind of evil doppelg ä nger to every step of the Internet ’ s long history
from its very origins, its growth has suddenly become explosive in recent years by
virtually any estimate. According to the security company Sophos, its global network
of labs received around 60,000 new malicious software (malware) samples every day
in the fi rst half of 2010; every 1.4 seconds of every day, a new malware sample arrives.
25
The reasons for this sudden surge in cybercrime can be connected back to the previous two drivers. Our expanding and constantly evolving communications ecosystem
of extensive social sharing of data, mobile networking from multiple platforms and
locations, and increasing reliance on “ clouds ” and social networking services operated
by thousands of companies of all shapes, sizes, and geographic locations has emerged
with such swiftness that organizations and individuals have yet to adapt proper security practices and policies. While convenient and fun, this environment is also a
dangerous brew and an opportunity structure ripe for crime and espionage to fl ourish.
A largely hidden and massively exploding ecosystem is parasitically thriving off of
insecure data-sharing practices and vulnerable browsers, servers, and Web sites.
Ever since the Internet emerged from the world of academia and into the worldof-the-rest-of-us, its growth trajectory has been shadowed by a gray economy that has
thrived on the opportunities for enrichment that an open, globally connected infrastructure has made possible. In the early years, cybercrime was clumsy, consisting
mostly of extortion rackets that leveraged blunt computer network attacks against
online casinos or pornography sites to extract funds from frustrated owners. Over
time, it has become more sophisticated, more precise: like muggings morphing into