UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles the Spatiality of Power In
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Spatiality of Power in Internet Control and Cyberwar A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Geography by Cameran Hooshang Ashraf 2015 © Copyright by Cameran Hooshang Ashraf 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Spatiality of Power in Internet Control and Cyberwar by Cameran Hooshang Ashraf Doctor of Philosophy in Geography University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor John A. Agnew, Co-Chair Professor Michael Edward Shin, Co-Chair Recent debates on Internet censorship and the role of the state in online communications highlight concerns about sovereignty, borders, and territory in a globalizing world. Conventional geopolitical thought views the world as divided into discrete spatial units, with each state free to act within its territory. The space in which the state can act is its territory, demarcated by its borders, and its freedom to act within those boundaries is its sovereignty. Territory, borders, and sovereignty are the geographical assumptions which underpin the international state system. States viewed the Internet as an extension of existing territory, and sought to extend that territory in the new informational space by developing laws and technical systems to territorialize cyberspace. In effect, the international state system became duplicated in cyberspace, such that the Internet experienced from within one state could radically differ from the Internet experienced from another. However, the image of stability provided by replicating existing geopolitical logics becomes illusory during times of cyberwar. States no longer regard ii the informational boundaries and territories they created in cyberspace as meaningful, and instead seek to gather as much cyberpower as possible without regard for the very geographic logic which cyberwar attempts to maintain. This dissertation exposes the cyber-geographical gap between state territorialization of cyberspace and state practice during times of cyberwar. It does so by demonstrating how states territorialize the Internet and, through case studies, how cyberwar is conducted without regards for conventional geographies. This research is significant because 1) it represents the first critical geopolitical engagement with Internet filtering and cyberwar in academic geography; 2) it provides a theoretical background for the problem of attribution in cyberwar; 3) it reveals a theoretical geographical instability at the nexus of traditional sovereignty and alternative spatialities of power. It is this last element of geographical instability which this dissertation ultimately argues may represent a new geography for states in cyberspace. iii The dissertation of Cameran Hooshang Ashraf is approved. Eric Sheppard Nazli Choucri Michael Edward Shin, Committee Co-Chair John A. Agnew, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv Dedicated to my mother. Thank you for helping me with my homework one last time. I miss you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS FIGURES AND TABLES ........................................................................................................... vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... ix CURRICULUM VITAE ............................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2: Geopolitics .............................................................................................................17 CHAPTER 3: Geopolitics of Internet Control ..............................................................................66 CHAPTER 4: What is Cyberwar? ..............................................................................................125 CHAPTER 5: The Methods of Cyberwar: Attack and Defense ..................................................181 CHAPTER 6: The Spatiality of Power in Cyberwar ...................................................................210 CHAPTER 7: Conclusion ...........................................................................................................277 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................300 vi FIGURES AND TABLES Fig. 1 - Cold War Alliances in 1980 .............................................................................................24 Fig. 2 - The Clash of Civilizations ................................................................................................32 Fig. 3 - Ensemble of Worlds .........................................................................................................36 Fig. 4 - Field of Forces ..................................................................................................................37 Fig. 5 - Hierarchical Network .......................................................................................................39 Fig. 6 - World Society ...................................................................................................................40 Table 1 - Sovereignty Regimes .....................................................................................................59 Fig. 7 - ARPANet in December 1969 ...........................................................................................83 Fig. 8 - IP based blocking ...........................................................................................................100 Fig. 9 - DNS Tampering .............................................................................................................102 Fig. 10 - Distributed Denial of Service Attack ...........................................................................103 Fig. 11 - Proxy Server .................................................................................................................108 Fig. 12 - Onion Routing – 102 ....................................................................................................109 Fig. 13 - Generations of Internet Filtering ..................................................................................111 Table 2 - Aspects of Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism, and Cyberespionage ...................................136 Fig. 14 - The Vast Reach of the Gh0stNet cyberespionage network ..........................................146 Table 3 - Alarmist, Skeptic, and Realist positions ......................................................................150 Table 4 - Alarmist, Skeptic, and Realist positions and the dissertation’s definition ..................171 Fig. 15 - Distributed Denial of Service Attack ...........................................................................192 Fig. 16 - DDoS attack on Iranian opposition website .................................................................193 Fig. 17 - Radio Zamaneh website defaced by Iranian Cyber Army ...........................................194 Fig. 18 - Bronze Night protests in Tallinn, Estonia ....................................................................214 Fig. 19 - Baku-Ceyhan pipeline ..................................................................................................226 vii Fig. 20 - Defaced Georgian parliament website .........................................................................229 Fig. 21 - Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Google Blogspot .........................................231 Fig. 22 - Map of Flame infections ..............................................................................................238 Fig. 23 - Map of StuxNet infections ...........................................................................................241 Fig. 24 - Iran’s “Twitter Revolution” .........................................................................................246 Fig. 25 - Spike in DNS traffic during an Operation Ababil attack .............................................250 Table 5 – Case studies and the spatiality of power ......................................................................272 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This has been a long and difficult journey, and one which could not have been completed without the support of many kind individuals. I would like to thank as many of them as I can. Thank you to John Agnew, who provided much wisdom and guidance throughout my time here at UCLA, believed in me both before and after being accepted to the program, and for a heartfelt conversation after my mother’s passing. Michael Shin, thank you for working with me through some difficult times – I know it wasn’t easy for you, and I am very grateful for your patience and guidance. I thank Michael Curry for stimulating reading lists, opening my mind to orality and literacy, and for his helpful technique for getting through writer’s block. Thank you to Stephen Bell for encouraging words which made a difference early in my time at UCLA. Eric Sheppard, for asking the right questions during my dissertation proposal defense. I thank Nazli Choucri for her support of my dissertation and guidance with my proposal. Within the Department of Geography I would like to thank Kasi for her support, many conversations, and support through the good times and the bad times, I truly appreciate it. I also thank Vanessa, Rebecca, and Tanja for making my visits to the office something