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Interview with Pauline Reich, Professor at Waseda University School of Law & IT

Issues in Global Cybersecurity: Translating Threats & Consequences

By IGI Global on Jun 7, 2013
Pauline ReichIGI Global recently had a chance to discuss the issues of global cybersecurity and cybercrime with world-traveler and research specialist Professor Pauline Reich, editor of the book Law, Policy, and Technology: Cyberterrorism, Information Warfare, and Internet Immobilization.

IGI Global: Tell us a little about your book. What are the most important issues addressed?

Pauline Reich: First, let me explain the concept for the book. I have been the Founder/Director of the Asia-Pacific Cyberlaw, Cybercrime and Internet Security Research Institute in Tokyo, Japan for about seven years, and General Editor of the book series "Cybercrime and Security" for ten years. I have been in approximately 50 countries, and the book series covers close to all of them.

As a professor, author, and consultant, what I have found after doing research on worldwide Cybercrime and Cybersecurity issues, is that the Information Security professionals and the Law and Policy professionals do not collaborate in areas in which they need to know one another’s fields. In other words, they need to have what I call the “interdisciplinary dialogue”, otherwise they will keep talking past one another. Due to the lack of such a dialogue, as well as an interdisciplinary curriculum and training, I notice most countries are having trouble adopting laws, policies, and strategies because the legislators do not understand technology issues and judges, and prosecutors do not understand technology/forensics/digital evidence. Therefore, training can be either fragmented or duplicative when offered by various private sector vendors.

The idea of the book was to have an interdisciplinary approach, to invite a wide range of people from different disciplines and a wide range of perspectives to show readers what the issues are; not only offering solutions, but raising the issues. Ed Gelbstein’s team are tech experts who address important issues as practitioners in the information security area, while my team was made up of law and policy experts who focused on the weak legal framework and limited international cooperation.

What findings have you found most fascinating in your research of Cybersecurity law and policy?

I think we have raised issues and provoked thinking, but we have only made findings about what exists and what does not exist.

For me, as a lawyer, the challenges in defining what we are talking about were fascinating. It was a real eye opener when I reviewed how different the terminology is, that you and I might consider well-defined, between the U.S. and Russian Federation military officials. They were trying to find common terms for fashioning a global treaty, but even basic words like “information” “cyber” were not understood to have the same meaning. (See Chapter 8.)

The same is true of the definition of “terrorism” – the world has not gotten to a universal definition of it, nor of “cyber terrorism”. (Chapters 11 and 13.)

For democracies, some of the recurring issues in the United States described in the chapters about freedom, privacy and government surveillance issues continue to be problematic. For example, the outcries of privacy and civil liberties groups in the United States, Canada, India, and the Philippines have been counter-balanced to the adoption and use of legislation.

Where do you see as the future of cyber security with respect to its role in society?

The need to keep data and communications secure is an ongoing one for individuals, businesses, and governments. I believe that the technology community is essential to this effort, however, the tech experts need to understand the legal issues of civil liberties: privacy and freedom of expression, at least in democracies.

There are great gulfs in understanding what can and should be acceptable behavior on the Internet, and added to those issues are countries that are now considering “seceding” from the Internet and creating their own separate national networks. While understood in such terms as “sovereignty” and “security”, if such countries create their own national or allied networks, we may again see blocs which will not be part of the global scheme. While they say they are protecting their nations from unwelcome or unwholesome information, the nations may be in fact precluded from the benefits of open access to knowledge, e-commerce, etc.

Thus, we need to keep people, businesses, and governments safe from criminal and other dangers, balanced with continuing to provide the great opportunities that have arisen thanks to the existence of today’s global Internet.

Who could most benefit from your research and study findings?

Law professors, law students, judges, prosecutors, legislators, national security analysts, law enforcement, information security students and professionals, consultants and consulting firms could all benefit from this multidisciplinary and innovative approach.

Journalists might also benefit from having a clearer handle on the terms they throw around without thinking, e.g. terms like “cyberwar”, “cyber weapons”, even “cybercrime”, “cyberattack”, and “cyber security”.

Is there any message you would like to give to your readers as it pertains to your research?

These issues are constantly evolving. What was written last year might not be applicable next year or the year after; though I do see a longstanding problem of the inability to adopt appropriate and adequate domestic, regional, and global legislation and treaties to address cybersecurity and cybercrime issues. Perhaps the insights of our contributors – academics as well as practitioners – may give a global perspective and longitudinal overview of the evolution to where we are – and are not –today.

We are certainly not getting any closer to a global treaty on cybercrime or cybersecurity, nor able to ensure that the benefits of the Internet that we enjoy today will be available to future generations worldwide. The recent ITU WCIT conference in Dubai in December 2012 shows us how far apart countries are.


Professor Pauline Reich is an American lawyer and professor, writer, arbitrator/mediator, and consultant. Director of the Asia-Pacific Cyberlaw, Cybercrime and Internet Security Institute in Tokyo, Japan, Prof. Reich conducts research, producing publications, providing technical assistance and training for lawyers, judges, prosecutors, police, legislators, businesses, governments in the Asia-Pacific region and worldwide. Speaker at conferences in the United States, Europe and Asia, e.g. APEC Symposium on Information Privacy in E-Government and E-commerce, CSI 2008, RAISE (Regional Asia Information Security Exchange), Business Software Alliance, Cybersecurity Malaysia, Asian Institute of Technology, ITU regional Asia workshop on framework for Cybersecurity and CIIP, BILETA 2010.

Professor Reich is editor of the publication Law, Policy, and Technology: Cyberterrorism, Information Warfare, and Internet Immobilization which provides relevant frameworks and best practices as well as current empirical research findings in the area. It is aimed at professionals who want to improve their understanding of the impact of cyber-attacks on critical infrastructures and other information systems essential to the smooth running of society, how such attacks are carried out, what measures should be taken to mitigate their impact and what lessons can be learned from the attacks and simulations of the last few years.

For more information on this and other publications on the topics of security and cyber behavior, see IGI Global's IT Security & Ethics books.
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Government and LawSecurity and ForensicsCyber BehaviorCyber Warfare & TerrorismGlobal Information TechnologyVirtual CommunitiesBooks & E-BooksChaptersEvents & CollaborationsInterviewAsiaNorth America

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