Avoiding the internet of insecure industrial things

Security incidents such as targeted distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on power grids and hacking of factory industrial control systems (ICS) are on the increase. This paper unpacks where emerging security risks lie for the industrial internet of things, drawing on both technical and regulatory perspectives. Legal changes are being ushered by the European Union (EU) Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive 2016 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) (both to be enforced from May 2018). We use the case study of the emergent smart energy supply chain to frame, scope out and consolidate the breadth of security concerns at play, and the regulatory responses. We argue the industrial IoT brings four security concerns to the fore, namely: appreciating the shift from offline to online infrastructure; managing temporal dimensions of security; addressing the implementation gap for best practice; and engaging with infrastructural complexity. Our goal is to surface risks and foster dialogue to avoid the emergence of an Internet of Insecure Industrial Things.     

美国关键矿产安全的脆弱性识别与韧性操作逻辑

关键矿产安全是满足国防工业基础建设、助推清洁能源产业转型以及实现诸多高新技术研发与落地等国家安全需要的核心要素。供应链的安全则是关键矿产安全的核心,而生产与开发能力、回收技术发展、地缘政治竞争等因素皆会影响供应链的稳定性。存在严重对外依赖的现实使得美国为摆脱关键矿产安全的脆弱性,开始追求关键矿产的安全韧性。但在全球实力和地位相对下降的背景下,美国将地缘政治竞争视为影响供应安全的最重要因素。因此,美国在关键矿产安全领域表现出双重叙事：一方面,美国秉持生存叙事,力图通过减少关键矿产供应链的脆弱性,增强韧性,以保障国家安全的基本需求;另一方面,美国又主张权力叙事,将关键矿产安全韧性视为操作工具,以谋求全球控制和主导地位。在双重叙事的交织下,美国通过政治化关键矿产评估、构建排他性供应链等策略,意图在国际舞台上塑造有利于己的格局。而此种刻意制造安全焦虑、拉动“小圈子”、分割全球发展力量的举措给全球安全韧性带来严重冲击,威胁全人类的福祉,中国要高度警觉其进一步的举措,并积极进行应对。     

互联网国际规则建构:话语策略的公共安全视角

对当今世界各主要经济体而言,互联网安全已成为一个利益攸关的重要议题,但该领域国际共识和国际规则严重缺失,这与持续加剧的互联网安全威胁之间产生了尖锐的矛盾。在中国,互联网治理日益成为关乎国家安全的政策焦点,同时也是参与全球治理不可或缺的组成部分;建构互联网国际规则的话语能力直接影响着中国对外传播话语体系的建立和制度性话语权的提升,但目前中国对该领域话语策略的学术与政策研究仍严重缺失。当前,对互联网国际规则之制度理念的应然性研究仍显不足,关于中国在该领域对外传播话语策略的探讨更是近乎空白。互联网国际规则的缺失本质上源于互联网信息自由带来的收益与政府信息管控对此种收益的限制之间存在难以调和的矛盾。由于日益严峻的互联网安全形势正逐渐打破互联网信息自由与政府信息管控之间原有的平衡,加之全球化趋势将世界各国的命运更加紧密地联系在一起,该领域国际规则的建构开始具备现实的可能性。鉴于传播话语在规则建构的过程中占据着举足轻重的地位,以公共安全为切入点赢得国际共识、提升中国在互联网全球治理中的话语能力和制度性话语权就成为中国政策制定机构和宣传机构在通过对外传播推进互联网国际规则建构时应采取的话语策略。     

When private governance impedes multilateralism: The case of international pesticide governance

Private standards play an increasingly important governance role, yet their effects on state-led policymaking remain understudied. We examine how the operation of private agricultural standards influences multilateral pesticide governance with a particular focus on the listing of substances under the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, a treaty-based information-sharing mechanism that allows countries to refuse hazardous chemical imports. We find that private agricultural standard-setting bodies use the Rotterdam Convention's pesticide list to develop their own lists of banned substances. This alters the Rotterdam Convention's intended role, impeding efforts to add substances to the treaty, as attempts by private actors to impose stricter governance than state actors can undermine the potential for international state-based governance to become more stringent. We characterize this as a “confounding interaction” whereby institutional linkages between actions by public and private actors with broadly aligned goals results in unexpected negative consequences for governance.