Cyber security field is a continuous battle field where malware and cyber security products are pitted against each other in an incessant manner. This fight is made more complicated due to absence of uniform international legal issues of cyber security on the one hand and continuous violation of civil liberties on the other. As on date we are facing complicated conflict of laws in cyberspace as far as fields like cyber law and cyber security are concerned.

Take the example of recent expansion of Rule 41 by the US Supreme Court that has conferred a long arm jurisdictions upon US courts regarding cyber crimes. Obviously, the trans border hacking and search activities of FBI would violate civil liberties and cyber laws of different nations. This would also speed up the cyber race among the nations as cyber warfare and cyber espionage activities are going to increase with an inevitable use of malware and zero day vulnerabilities.

India is a blind follower of US when it comes to cyber law, cyber security, e-surveillance and spying. This is done without any background analysis and a model suitable for US is blindly applied to Indian conditions. Obviously, this would bring negative effect upon the Indian business community as well as netizen’s rights.

India’s blind reliance upon foreign technology, especially foreign encryption and cyber security technologies, has made it vulnerable to various forms on arm twisting. For instance, India has recently opposed the idea to include cyber security technology under the Wassenaar Arrangement as this would limit the access of India to cyber security technologies. US is also pushing for formulating trade rules at WTO for e-commerce and cloud computing. It seems US is more guided by its own political and national interests that are in clear conflict with other nations interests.

As on date we have no universal cyber law and cyber security (PDF) treaties at the global level. All nations are free to regulate their physical territories and cyberspace as per their own interests. As far as cyber warfare is concerned, some academic but non binding guidance can be found in the form of Tallinn Manual. But the same is for reference only and countries are free to ignore the same in case they are faced with conflicting interests.

Meanwhile, US is pushing its own agenda world over. While it keeps on blaming countries like China for cyber aggression yet its own initiatives are far more dangerous. For instance, it is believed that the Stuxnet malware was created by US. Similarly, it is well known that US is the biggest buyer of malware in the world. It is also within public domain that US is targeting netizens across the globe for e-surveillance and cyber attacks. Kaspersky has also revealed that hardware based stealth spyware were used by US intelligence agencies besides the radio waves. These negative developments have also forced Indian intelligence agencies to demand for legal immunity against cyber deterrent acts.

It seems US is creating cyber nuisance to such an uncontrolled and unlimited extent that it cannot manage the same for decades in future. US is also forcing the countries to engage in blatant cyber warfare, cyber espionage and cyber race. Cyber security must not be handled the way US is handling it. Instead of suppressing civil liberties, encryption and anonymity, we must concentrate upon better security products and services, unbreakable encryption methods, more secure and private Internet communications, better cyber law and cyber security laws and so on. This seems to be a distant dream as on date and private technology companies have a great role to ensure that Internet is not collapsed and compromised by Orwellian and draconian cyber controls by various nations, especially the US and India.