In its own operations, the United States has also been cautious. Any destructive attack to actually break a foreign system requires many levels of approval, including from the president. There were looser rules about just entering a system and looking around—espionage instead of “preparing the environment” for attack. Yet as Martin Libicki, a cyber expert at the US Naval Academy, noted, to the country or company on the receiving end, that distinction may mean little: “From a psychological perspective, the difference between penetration and manipulation may not matter so much.”
