This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race

by Nicole Perlroth

A century and a half earlier, in 1949, he reminded the crowd, a dozen countries had come together to agree on basic rules of warfare. Hospitals and medical personnel were off limits, the countries agreed. It took three more diplomatic summits over the next century before 169 nation-states signed on to the Fourth Geneva Convention, agreeing to basic protections for wounded or captured military personnel, medical personnel, and nonmilitary civilians during wartime—rules that still hold today. “It was here in Geneva in 1949 that the world’s governments came together and pledged that they would protect civilians even in times of war,” Smith told government officials from around the globe. “And yet let’s look at what is happening. We’re seeing nations attack civilians even in times of peace.”