The electronic revolution: is the nation state redundant?
Date
2000
Authors
Broome, John
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[Introduction]: Today much of our daily business involves the use of the Internet and, through it, electronic commerce or e-commerce. We buy products and pay bills over the net. We access information for work, pleasure or to satisfy our curiosity. We have the ability to communicate with friends and colleagues across the city or across the world instantaneously. We have the ability to conduct research without ever visiting a library. But the revolution in life-style and work for each of us as individuals has been matched or exceeded by the changes this electronic revolution has brought to every sector of the business community. Massive changes in areas such as health, education and entertainment are also occurring. But what if it all suddenly stopped? What if the Australian Stock Exchange went off line for a day or even longer? What if the banks, most of whose business customers and a growing number of individual customers use and rely on line services, were shut down by a denial of service attack? What if the credit card systems were shut down and ATMs unable to function for a significant period? The result would be chaotic and the cost immense. A denial of service attack involves the sending of many messages to a site at the same time with the effect that the system is effectively ‘jammed’. If the perpetrator of what is a premeditated ‘terrorist’ attack on the target site decided to repeat the attack at various intervals (and from different locations) the disruption could be maintained for a significant period. Because of the nature of e-commerce the site must be accessible to the public and other businesses so a change of site name is no solution. Business would come to a standstill. In Australia the ASX is susceptible to a denial of service attack now that both brokers and individual traders rely on the net to do business. Such an attack would not only cost millions in lost business it may seriously affect the value of the dollar. If a number of financial institutions were targeted at once it would further exacerbate the apparent perception that the Australian economy is old world rather than new. That perception is often cited as the reason for the continued fall in the value of the Australian dollar. In short we would face an economic catastrophe. It is ironic that the extent to which Australia has adopted electronic commerce makes it so vulnerable. Such an attack would, of course, involve a serious and deliberate act with huge financial consequences. Yet such an attack is not a criminal offence in Australia. At least not as a matter of federal law unless, perhaps, the target of the attack is a Commonwealth-owned facility. The difficulty arises because the sending of messages to such sites is exactly what the operators of such sites want to happen. It is the frequency and volume that causes the problem. However, the UK made such conduct a criminal offence more than a decade ago. While the Commonwealth has still not acted, some Australian states are contemplating legislation to deal with this problem and related criminal activity that could create widespread interruption to our business activities. Why has the Commonwealth been so slow to react? What are the consequences of this inactivity? Can we deal with the issues at this stage or is it too late? These are some of the issues I want to explore. We are at a critical stage. A number of very significant opportunities have already been lost. For reasons that are not apparent the Federal Government has ignored warning signs and advice. The Australian business community, always antagonistic to government action, has been its own worst enemy in not pressing the Government for action. This failure to act has been made worse because of the continued inability of Australian law enforcement to have the legal capacity, resources and skills to combat such criminal behaviour.
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e-commerce, electronic commerce, denial of service attack, computer-related crime, information warfare, transnational crime, electronic crime, law enforcement
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