Background

1. Space, Spectrum and CyberspaceOpportunities and Obligations(?) for AustraliaPresentationbyBrett Biddingtonto Association of Old Crows ConventionAdelaide April 2012

2. Background 1970sBA(Hons) politics diplomat university lecturer 1980-2002 RAAF intelligence security capability development ($2bn portfolio of projects with associated R&D sponsorship) 2002- 09 joined Cisco – “internet in space” team 1 of a team of 16 world-wide, Canberra-based Now Biddington Research Pty Ltd – Space & Cyber Security Other: Chair – Space Industry Association of Australia Member – Space Industry Innovation Council Astronomy governance Board member, Kokoda Foundation Adjunct Professor at ECU

3. Fragile Environments • Readily disturbed/denied/destroyed • Space debris • Turn off the power • Spectrum is finite • Difficult/impossible (?) to regulate and police • Hard to grasp • Sovereignty means? • Rules and norms? Made by? • Customary international law and treaties • tight system coupling – catastrophic failure vs graceful degradation Drives economies Space Nat. sec. dominates Cyber Spectrum Antarctica Enables society

4. Space Junk: SSA US spy satellite de-orbit • Iridium/Cosmos collision • Chinese ASAT test

5. Current Regulatory Mechanisms Space Treaty Regime for the 1960s/70s UN COPUOS UN CD MTCR Bilateral agreements Space and non-proliferation co-mingled Mechanisms not coping as space becomes contested and congested Codes of conduct Cyber (the 1s and 0s) An environment of human creation High level technology standards (eg IPv4 to IPv6) Local laws (eg. anti child porn) (Mostly) informal international agreements to detect and defeat cyber crime Spectrum The International Telecommunication Union National regulatory authorities (ACMA in Australia – poacher and game-keeper) Mechanisms incapable of dealing with the “internet of things” – ubiquitous mobility

6. Increasing inter-dependencies Space Time and location GPS and similar systems Comms to remote users Geo-spatial information and awareness Cyber The internet of things Displays and records time and location Changing the way we “live, work and play” BYOD The Cloud national borders are irrelevant Spectrum Ubiquitous connectivity Already beyond the capacity of regulators to control ITU too slow Watch for the outcome of Light squared vs GPS Inside 10 years, we will simply take what we need

7. Disruption in the Space, Cyber and Spectrum Domains Some principles: • The offense is favoured – nimble, tiny footprint, attribution hard to impossible (you can’t hit back unless you know who to hit) • Disruption is profoundly asymmetric – defending takes disproportionate resources and still provides no guarantees • The three environments are tightly coupled - disturb one environment and all are affected (the computer is down, war stops) • Norms based behaviours in the three domains are beyond the capacity of defence forces, intelligence agencies and the broader national security community to introduce, embed and enforce • Increasingly real and virtual critical infrastructure is in private hands – incentives to make this infrastructure more resilient will not work until they manifestly benefit owners and shareholders

8. Language and Organisation • International discussion is largely within a linguistic and cognitive framework that comes from Washington • Characterised by superpower optimism, hubris and exclusivity (eg. “full spectrum dominance”, “space dominance and control” and “Asian space race”) • Substantial progress unlikely to be made until other frameworks of understanding are admitted to exist and allowed onto the negotiating table • eg. China is being asked to abide by norms in which it had no part in making. Can this work? • Concept of the “rational actor” • There is a disturbing orthodoxy, certainly in Australia, that management of the space and cyber domains is above all a question for the national security community to resolve (spectrum has broken loose – somewhat - because Government has sniffed a quid) • Is cyber space a mere extension of traditional SIGINT or something larger? Agencies such as DSD are heavily invested in the SIGINT potentials of cyber space but are they best capable of dealing with complexities beyond the intelligence domain? I’m not sure.

9. Middle Power Challenges and Opportunities • Australia will find it increasingly difficult to keep up with the US – simply a question of scale (a note about ADAC) • This implies some tough choices, especially in force structure, and will depend, above all, on how we conceive our national strategy in coming years • Globalist, Regionalist (strategy based on ideas like ‘order’) or Continentalist (strategy based on ‘geography’) - Rod Lyon (ASPI) • In the electronic domain – how does Australia achieve a balance between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ capabilities – what are the variables to be taken into account? • Regarding space, Australia may have an opportunity to provide leadership to the space dispossessed nations. Building on experience with Antarctica and Law of the Sea, there may be an opportunity (obligation?) to put ourselves between China (esp) and India and the US to help to build confidence and eventually new norms in this the Asian Century.

10. Space disadvantaged nations: dependent but without significant influence Implications for cyber and spectrum? 2.3 billion 111 countries Av pop 20m 4.7 billion 82 countries Av pop 60m

11. Discussion Brett Biddington M 0401 890 368 bbidding@tpg.com.au