Attack and Defense Strategies in Cyber War Involving Production and Stockpiling of Zero-Day Cyber Exploits

Two players strike balances between allocating resources for defense and production of zero-day exploits. Production is further allocated into cyberattack or stockpiling. Applying the Cobb Douglas expected utility function for equivalent players, an analytical solution is determined where each player’s expected utility is inverse U shaped in each player’s unit defense cost. More generally, simulations illustrate the impact of varying nine parameter values relative to a benchmark. Increasing a player’s unit costs of defense or development of zero-days benefits the opposing player. Increasing the contest intensities over the two players’ assets causes the players to increase their efforts until their resources are fully exploited and they receive zero expected utility. Decreasing the Cobb Douglas output elasticity for a player’s stockpiling of zero-days causes its attack to increase and its expected utility to eventually reach a maximum, while the opposing player’s expected utility reaches a minimum. Altering the Cobb Douglas output elasticities for a player’s attack or defense contests towards their maxima or minima causes maximum expected utility for both players.publishedVersio

Court Review: The Journal of the American judges Association, Vol. 57, No. 4

Court Review, the quarterly journal of the American Judges Association, invites the submission of unsolicited, original articles, essays, and book reviews. Court Review seeks to provide practical, useful information to the working judges of the United States and Canada. In each issue, we hope to provide information that will be of use to judges in their everyday work, whether in highlighting new procedures or methods of trial, court, or case management, providing substantive information regarding an area of law likely to be encountered by many judges, or by providing background information (such as psychology or other social science research) that can be used by judges in their work. Guidelines for the submission of manuscripts for Court Review are set forth on page 222 of this issue. Court Review reserves the right to edit, condense, or reject material submitted for publication

Complying with international prison law? Prison discipline in Belgium and France

The number of international prison standards has risen steadily during the last decades. More than 20 international instruments now stipulate how to enforce prison discipline. Said instruments should ensure that prison conditions are humane and promote good prison management. Safety, security and discipline in prison require, inter alia, dynamic, alert and trained prison staff, pro-active prison directors and room for conflict resolution mechanisms. Compliance with international standards on prison discipline has been researched in Belgium and France, in law and in practice. The research findings are based on an analysis of legal instruments, policy documents and jurisprudence. These findings are complemented with an empirical research in seven prisons in Belgium and France. Data was gathered using methodological triangulation, mostly by studying prison disciplinary files, attending disciplinary hearings and interviewing detainees, prison officers and prison governors. The presentation highlights major deficiencies with prison discipline in both countries, including the lack of information to prisoners on the prison rules, the lack of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, problems regarding the rules on fact-finding and the burden of proof, and poor detention conditions in solitary confinement. The results are striking as both countries have been through a major legislative reform in 2005