Cyberspace and governance - a primer

"This working paper has a threefold purpose: first, it proposes a better understanding of the difference between the Internet (interconnecting computers) and the World Wide Web (managing information). Against this background, a four-layer model of cyberspace is presented including a physical, logical, informational, and social layer. Second, the paper splits the national cybersecurity debate in five distinct subject areas,or mandates. These include Military Cyberactivities, Counter-Cybercrime, Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, Critical Infrastructure Protection and National Crisis Management, and Cyberdiplomacy and Internet Governance, each of which is typically covered by a distinct government department. Third, as one of the most understated and least understood mandates on this list, Internet Governance is described at more length in the final section." (author's abstract)"Die Zielsetzung dieses Arbeitspapiers gliedert sich in drei Kernpunkte: Erstens wird versucht, den Unterschied zwischen dem Internet (Vernetzung von Computern) und dem World Wide Web (Informationsverwaltung) herauszuarbeiten. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll der Cyberspace als ein Vierschichtenmodell aufgespannt werden, das eine physische, logische, informationelle und soziale Schicht beinhaltet. Zweitens teilt dieses Papier die nationale Debatte zur Cybersicherheit in fünf unterschiedliche Themenbereiche, oder auch Mandate. Diese umfassen Militärische Cyberaktivitäten; Bekämpfung von Cyberkriminalität; Nachrichtendienstliche Aktivitäten; Schutz Kritischer Infrastrukturen und Nationales Krisenmanagement; sowie Cyberdiplomatie und Internet Governance. Im Allgemeinen kann jedes dieser fünf Mandate von unterschiedlichen Ministerien abgedeckt werden. Drittens soll in einem abschließenden Teil Internet Governance, als eines der am wenigsten beachteten Mandate in diesem Zusammenhang, ausführlicher betrachtet werden." (Autorenreferat

Cyber Security: DNS-CERT as a case for Securitization in Internet Governance

Das grundlegende Ziel dieser Studie ist es, charakteristische Eigenschaften für Multi-Stakeholder Collaborations ausfindig zu machen. Am Beispiel von Internet Governance (genauer gesagt von Domain Name System Governance) soll dies unter Anwendung des Securitization-Konzeptes der Kopenhagener Schule erfolgen. Unter Anwendung der Theorie im Fall von DNS-CERT wird gehofft, dass bestimmte Merkmale festgemacht werden, die anschließend auch in anderen Zusammenhängen untersucht werden können. Darüber hinaus versucht diese Studie den Blick auf das Kopenhagener Konzept von Cyber Securitization zu schärfen, indem es ein Vier-Schichten Modell für den Cyberspace spezifiziert, mit je einer physischen, logischen, informationellen und sozialen Schicht.The overall aim of this study is to detect some specific characteristics for multi-stakeholder collaboration. This shall be achieved by applying the Copenhagen school’s concept of cyber securitization to the area of Internet governance (more precisely Domain Name System governance). By looking at DNS-CERT as a case for securitization in Internet governance, it is hoped to find some specific features that could eventually be detected in other areas as well. Also, this study tries to sharpen the Copenhagen school’s concept of cyber securitization in that it specifies a four-layer model for cyberspace, including a physical, logical, content, and social layer

Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research in Practice: Lessons from Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research in the Austrian Eisenwurzen

Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) is an inter- and transdisciplinary research field addressing socio-ecological change over time at various spatial and temporal scales. In the Austrian Eisenwurzen region, an LTSER platform was founded in 2004. It has fostered and documented research projects aiming at advancing LTSER scientifically and at providing regional stakeholders with relevant information for sustainable regional development. Since its establishment, a broad range of research activities has been pursued in the region, integrating information from long-term ecological monitoring sites with approaches from social sciences and the humanities, and in cooperation with regional stakeholders. Based on the experiences gained in the Eisenwurzen LTSER platform, this article presents current activities in the heterogeneous field of LTSER, identifying specific (inter-)disciplinary contributions of three research strands of LTSER: long-term ecological research, socio-ecological basic research, and transdisciplinary research. Given the broad array of diverse contributions to LTSER, we argue that the platform has become a relevant "boundary organization", linking research to its regional non-academic context, and ensuring interdisciplinary exchange among the variety of disciplines. We consider the diversity of LTSER approaches an important resource for future research. Major success criteria of LTSER face specific challenges: (1) existing loose, yet stable networks need to be maintained and extended; (2) continuous generation of and access to relevant data needs to be secured and more data need to be included; and (3) consecutive research projects that have allowed for capacity building in the past may be threatened in the future if national Austrian research funders cease to provide resources

DEIMS-SDR – A web portal to document research sites and their associated data

Climate change and other drivers are affecting ecosystems around the globe. In order to enable a better understanding of ecosystem functioning and to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies in response to environmental change, a broad range of information, including in-situ observations of both biotic and abiotic parameters, needs to be considered. Access to sufficient and well documented in-situ data from long term observations is therefore one of the key requirements for modelling and assessing the effects of global change on ecosystems. Usually, such data is generated by multiple providers; often not openly available and with improper documentation. In this regard, metadata plays an important role in aiding the findability, accessibility and reusability of data as well as enabling reproducibility of the results leading to management decisions. This metadata needs to include information on the observation location and the research context. For this purpose we developed the Dynamic Ecological Information Management System – Site and Dataset Registry (DEIMS-SDR), a research and monitoring site registry (https://www.deims.org/) that not only makes it possible to describe in-situ observation or experimentation sites, generating persistent, unique and resolvable identifiers for each site, but also to document associated data linked to each site. This article describes the system architecture and illustrates the linkage of contextual information to observational data. The aim of DEIMS-SDR is to be a globally comprehensive site catalogue describing a wide range of sites, providing a wealth of information, including each site's location, ecosystems, facilities, measured parameters and research themes and enabling that standardised information to be openly available

Ecosytem services: A rapid assessment method tested at 35 sites of the LTER-Europe Network

The identification of parameters to monitor the ecosystem services delivered at a site is fundamental to the concept’s adoption as a useful policy instrument at local, national and international scales. In this paper we (i) describe the process of developing a rapid comprehensive ecosystem service assessment methodology and (ii) test the applicability of the protocol at 35 long-term research (LTER) sites across 14 countries in the LTER-Europe network (www.lter-europe.net) including marine, urban, agricultural, forest, desert and conservation sites. An assessment of probability of occurrence with estimated confidence score using 83 ecosystem service parameters was tested. The parameters were either specific services like food production or proxies such as human activities which were considered surrogates for cultural diversity and economic activity. This initial test of the ecosystem service parameter list revealed that the parameters tested were relatively easy to score by site managers with a high level of certainty (92% scored as either occurring or not occurring at the site with certainty of over 90%). Based on this assessment, we concluded that (i) this approach to operationalise the concept of ecosystem services is practical and applicable by many sectors of civil society as a first screen of the ecosystem services present at a site, (ii) this study has direct relevance to land management and policy decision makers as a transparent vehicle to focus testing scenarios and target data gathering, but (iii) further work beyond the scale investigated here is required to ensure global applicability

Building a Global Ecosystem Research Infrastructure to Address Global Grand Challenges for Macrosystem Ecology

The development of several large-, "continental"-scale ecosystem research infrastructures over recent decades has provided a unique opportunity in the history of ecological science. The Global Ecosystem Research Infrastructure (GERI) is an integrated network of analogous, but independent, site-based ecosystem research infrastructures (ERI) dedicated to better understand the function and change of indicator ecosystems across global biomes. Bringing together these ERIs, harmonizing their respective data and reducing uncertainties enables broader cross-continental ecological research. It will also enhance the research community capabilities to address current and anticipate future global scale ecological challenges. Moreover, increasing the international capabilities of these ERIs goes beyond their original design intent, and is an unexpected added value of these large national investments. Here, we identify specific global grand challenge areas and research trends to advance the ecological frontiers across continents that can be addressed through the federation of these cross-continental-scale ERIs.Peer reviewe