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On the Use of Offensive Cyber Capabilities - Belfer Center for ...

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II. <strong>Cyber</strong> Policy <strong>On</strong>tology 15The majority <strong>of</strong> current literature on cyber operations suffers fromdependence on weak metaphors and unclear or ambiguous definitions.Moreover, to <strong>the</strong> extent definitions do exist regarding aspects <strong>of</strong> cyberoperations, <strong>the</strong>y are <strong>of</strong>ten ill suited <strong>for</strong> <strong>the</strong> particular policy debate. This inhibitspolicy makers from making intelligent decisions and developing effective cyberpolicy. For this reason, establishing a clear and policy-relevant ontology <strong>for</strong> cyberoperations is <strong>the</strong> essential first-step <strong>for</strong> conducing productive cyber policydiscussions.Existing frameworks <strong>for</strong> cyber operations are typically based on <strong>the</strong> intent<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> cyber action; <strong>the</strong> popular framework <strong>of</strong> cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism,hacktivism, and cyber-war is an example <strong>of</strong> one such intent based methodology.The intent <strong>of</strong> a cyber action, however, is <strong>of</strong>ten unclear or indeterminable.Effective policy must be fundamentally premised upon readily observableattributes. The dependence <strong>of</strong> existing typological frameworks <strong>for</strong> cyber onunobservable attributes renders <strong>the</strong>m largely inappropriate <strong>for</strong> policydiscussions.To correct this flaw we begin our discussion <strong>of</strong> “<strong>of</strong>fensive cyber” by firstpresenting an ontology <strong>for</strong> cyber policy analysis. This ontology provides cleardefinitions and identifies <strong>the</strong> pertinent attributes <strong>for</strong> a discussion <strong>of</strong> policy <strong>for</strong>cyber operations. In presenting this ontology, we will first examine <strong>the</strong> flawswith <strong>the</strong> existing analytical frameworks and explain <strong>the</strong> principles behind ours.15 An ontology is a <strong>for</strong>mal representation <strong>of</strong> a domain <strong>of</strong> knowledge as a set <strong>of</strong> concepts and <strong>the</strong>relationships between those concepts. An ontology is used to describe and reason within adomain <strong>of</strong> knowledge.11

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