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Author(s):
Seumas Miller
Secondary Title
Springer International Publishing
Abstract

Cyber-technology is a new and emerging area of dual use concern. Consider autonomous robots. On the one hand, autonomous robots can provide great benefits, e.g. providing for the health and safety of elderly invalids. On the other hand, autonomous robots have the potential to enable great harm, e.g. weaponised autonomous robots (so-called ‘killer robots ’). As we have seen, the intended great harm is typically delivered by a weapons system of some sort, e.g. chemical, nuclear or biological weapons. Cyber-technology is apparently no different in this respect since, after all, there are so-called cyber-weapons, such as the Stuxnet virus used to shut down Iranian nuclear facilities. In this chapter the definition of dual use technology elaborated in Chap. 2 is modified in light of some distinctive properties of cyber-technology.

Concluding remarks
This modified definition is applied to cyber-technology with a view to identifying cyber-technologies that are dual use technologies. It is concluded that weaponised autonomous robots , various forms of computer viruses, and ransomware are dual use technologies, but that the internet and other forms of cyber-infrastructure are not.

Reference details

DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-92606-3_7
Resource type
Miscellaneous
Year of Publication
2018
ISSN Number
2211-8101
Publication Area
Dual-use cybersecurity
Date Published
2018

How to cite this reference:

Miller, S. (2018). Cyber-Technology. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92606-3_7 (Original work published 2018)