Expect to see Congress take up legislation to punish nations and people that back global intellectual property theft and industrial espionage, House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers said today. Such legislation could revoke visas of those involved in economic espionage or sanction countries that back such behavior.

Such actions would punish "nation-states that steal intellectual property and repurpose it for government companies to illegally compete in the market," Rogers told reporters after a breakfast in Washington, alluding to Chinese intellectual property theft. "That's something I'm working on, and we've got some great bipartisan support on this and great bicameral support, and we'll have an announcement on this soon."

He added that legislation to punish countries engaged in economic espionage will not be included latest version of CISPA, set to be voted on next month, but rather it will be "announced and ready sometime this year."

He hinted that the legislation could also punish people who knowingly do business with foreign entities that rely on intellectual property theft for their business model.

"I steal from your house, and I come to [another person's house] and try to sell it, it is both a crime for me to steal it and a crime for you to take stolen property. This should be no different. The only difference is, the value of it is exponentially bigger," said Rogers, a former FBI agent.

Early last month, Rogers said the U.S. must do more to confront China on its state-backed economic espionage campaigns.

"We need direct talks with China and it needs to be at the top of a bilateral discussion about cyber espionage," Rogers told Killer Apps on Feb. 13. "This is a problem of epic proportions here, and they need to be called on the carpet. There has been absolutely no consequences for what they have been able to steal and repurpose to date." Rogers suggested that the U.S. implement trade sanctions and identify "individuals who participate in this, go after their visas, go after family travel, all of the levers we have at the Department of State. The problem is that bad."

Last month the White House unveiled its strategy to combat the international theft of intellectual property and trade secrets. This effort is focused on international law enforcement efforts to catch IP thieves and diplomatic cooperation aimed at curbing state-backed theft of trade secrets.

That's right, this is why we can't have nice things. Debris from the satellite China destroyed with an anti-satellite missile in January 2007 has finally done what everyone was afraid of: it hit another satellite, possibly causing serious damage.

According to Space.com, the debris from China's 1,600-pound FY-1C weather satellite collided with Russia's tiny "Ball Lens In The Space (BLITS) retroreflector satellite" (we have no idea what that means, either) on January 22.

Like we said, the international community has been worrying about this for a long time. Almost immediately after China shot down its relatively new satellite just to show that it could, it was condemned by the U.S. government for introducing a massive cloud of dangerous debris into the very crowded orbital highways. (The image above shows the debris stream roughly one month after the test, the lone white track represents the orbit of the International Space Station.)

China is believed to have used a modified version of its DF-21 ballistic missile (the same missile on which its DF-21D carrier-killer is based) to smash the satellite orbiting 537-miles above Earth into 2,841 pieces of "high-velocity" debris. That debris has twice passed close to the International Space Station.

To be fair, the United States destroyed an orbiting satellite for similar reasons -- to prove it could -- using a missile lobbed into space by an F-15 Eagle fighter in 1985. That test was reportedly rushed before Congress banned such activities due to the dangers posed by space debris and a desire to avoid militarizing space.

Anyway, the ever growing cloud of space debris and trash is a huge driver behind the U.S. military's push to improve its so-called Space Situational Awareness. Basically, it wants to know what's going on in the vicinity of all of its satellites so that it can steer them clear of a potential collision. Right now, the U.S. and other nations mostly rely on catalogues listing the orbits and last known locations of debris and satellites instead of real-time monitoring.

The U.S. government has and will continue to confront senior Chinese government officials "at the highest levels" about the massive amounts of cyber theft and espionage being committed against the United States by Chinese hackers, a senior White House official said today.

"We have repeatedly raised our concerns at the highest levels about cyber theft with senior Chinese officials, including in the military, and we will continue to do so," said the official in a statement emailed to Killer Apps Monday morning in reaction to cyber security firm Mandiant's new report detailing the exploits of a Chinese government cyber espionage unit.

"The United States has substantial and growing concerns about the threats to U.S. economic and national security posed by cyber intrusions, including the theft of commercial information," said the official, whose comments come a week after the White House introduced its cyber security executive order aimed at protecting critical infrastructure providers -- a relatively small group of banks, transport firms, energy companies, defense contractors and communications providers -- from crippling cyber attacks that would impact large numbers of Americans. The Pentagon is famously bolstering its offensive cyber capabilities in an effort to deter destructive cyber attacks against the United States.

The news of Mandiant's findings, first reported by the New York Times, also comes a week after Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, called on the United States to confront China on its reportedly widespread cyber theft and espionage campaign against U.S. government and businesses. (Click here to read Killer Apps's recent interview with Mandiant's chief security officer on China's massive espionage campaign.)

"We need direct talks with China, and it needs to be at the top of a bilateral discussion about cyber espionage," Rogers told Killer Apps after a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Wednesday. "This is a problem of epic proportions here and they need to be called on the carpet. There has been absolutely no consequences for what they have been able to steal and repurpose to date."

Rogers suggested that the United States begin implementing trade sanctions and "identifying individuals who participate in this, go after their visas, go after family travel -- all of the levers we have at the Department of State. The problem is that bad.

White House officials have repeatedly declined to discuss the specific steps they are considering taking to counter Chinese cyber aggression.

The United States is reportedly preparing a National Intelligence Estimate detailing Chinese cyber attacks against U.S. interests.Last year, Rogers's committee urged U.S. companies not to deal with Chinese telecommunications firms Huawei and ZTE, accusing the two of spying on U.S. businesses for the Chinese government. Also last year, U.S. Army Gen. Keith Alexander, head of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency called cyber crime "the greatest transfer of wealth in history."

The White House official went on to call for the United States and China to "continue a sustained, meaningful dialogue and work together to develop an understanding of acceptable behavior in cyberspace."

The effort to establish international rules of the road, or norms of behavior, in cyberspace based on the law of armed conflict is a tricky process that may take decades to flesh out, U.S. officials have repeatedly said. 

Chinese hackers' espionage efforts against the networks of U.S. news organizations including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal prompted several House lawmakers to call for a renewed effort to pass cyber security legislation.

"Attacks like this and the recent cyber attacks on U.S. banks, are further evidence that we must harden our networks against espionage by enacting comprehensive cybersecurity legislation to bolster our defenses against enemies who seek to steal our intelligence, intellectual property and dismantle our critical infrastructure," said Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee in an email statement to Killer Apps.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence made a similar call for Congress to move ahead with cyber security legislation in the face of a "relentless and sweeping" cyber espionage effort by China.

"The attacks on the U.S. banking industry and now major media outlets who dared publish stories critical of the Chinese government prove this is not a theoretical threat," said Rogers in a statement to Killer Apps. "Foreign cyber attackers are targeting every aspect of the American economy every day and Congress needs to act with urgency to protect our national security and our economy."

Rogers tried late last year to reintroduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA that he sponsored in early 2012.

CISPA would have allowed the government to share intelligence about online threat signatures with companies.  It would have also allowed companies to quickly notify the government if they believed they were under cyber attack, without being legally liable for improperly sharing customers' private information.

That bill passed in the House last April. However, it failed in the Senate after criticism by civil liberties advocates such as the ACLU, and Internet activist groups such the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation (the creators of Firefox).

Rogers' committee last year warned American businesses against doing business with Chinese telecomminucations giants Huawei and ZTE, claiming the two firms were spying on U.S. businesses on behalf of the Chinese government.

Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI.), co-chair of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus called for the establishment of international norms of behavior for dealing with cases of cyber aggression in addition to cyber security legislation in the United States.

"I have long pushed for international cooperation on cyber that includes establishing practices for responding when a country either condones or actively participates in significant cyber crime, espionage or attacks," said Langevin in a statement to Killer Apps. "However, we must remember that one of the greatest challenges in cybersecurity is the difficulty of attribution, so it is critical for the government and for private companies to take responsibility for protecting themselves. Most importantly, I continue to implore my colleagues to recognize the urgency with which we must act on cybersecurity by passing legislation that will make information sharing easier and address the vulnerability of our critical infrastructure."

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) mentioned the need for "cyber diplomacy" during his confirmation hearing to be the next secretary of state today. No, Kerry wasn't talking about diplomats sending Someecards to one another when he dropped the term on his fellow senators.

He was discussing the need for the international community to develop a host of new standards, or norms of behavior in cyber space.

Kerry was responding for questions from Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) who called for Kerry's thoughts on the secretary of state's role "in a world where cyber security is our greatest threat."

Kerry said Durbin's description of cyber as the world's greatest threat "hit the nail on the head."

"I guess I‘d call [cyber] the 21st-century nuclear weapons equivalent," said Kerry. "We are going to have to engage in cyber diplomacy and cyber negotiations and try to establish rules of the road that help us to be able to cope with this challenge."

"There are enormous difficulties ahead in that," he added, pointing out that some nations have very different views on what norms of behavior in the cyber world should look like -- a statement echoing those made by U.S. defense officials.

"I think most diplomacy is an extension of a particular nation's interests and in some cases it's an extension of their values," said Kerry. "Sometimes, you're more weighted toward interests than values ... this is one where we're going to find a way to address the interests with other states to somehow find common ground, if that makes sense to you, we're going to have to dig a lot deeper."

Those "interests" he was referring to may have been China's alleged widespread use of cyber espionage as a tool to steal Western business and defense secrets. Russia's -- and China's -- view that it's alright for countries to monitor their citizens Internet behavior and censor what they view online, Pentagon officials have told Killer Apps in the past.

He also called cyber security bills -- legislation that has so far failed to move forward in Congress despite years of attempts -- as a "very small step in trying to deal with this issue."

"Every day while we sit here, right now, certain countries are attacking our systems, they are trying to hack in to classified information, to various agencies of our government, to banking structures -- money has been stolen from accounts and moved in large sums," said Kerry. "There's a long list of grievances with respect to what this marvel of the Internet and the technology age has brought us."

"It's threatening to our power grid, it's threatening to our communications, it's threatening therefore to our capacity to respond and there are people out there who know it," said Kerry. "There are some countries who we are engaged with -- and all the senators know who they are -- who have a very good understanding of this power and who are pursuing it."

Here's what Killer Apps reported in September about U.S effort to establish cyber norms based on the laws of armed conflict and the resistance it's met, especially from Russia and China, according to Eric Rosenbach, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy.

"There are several countries right now that are very aggressive in cyberspace and are likely trying to create norms [of cyberspace behavior] that would be unstable for the international community because they are so aggressive," Rosenbach said. "It's still not completely clear what's acceptable and what's not acceptable and several nations different than the United States have very aggressive notions of what's acceptable."

Russia and China are focused more on controlling citizens' activities on the internet rather than limiting attacks on nations' critical infrastructure, he said.

"There are other countries, the Chinese and Russians in particular, that don't think the law of armed conflict is the best framework to view these things through and they focus much more heavily on control of information than they do on the security of crucial infrastructure or preventing the destruction of networks."

Rosenbach went on to call this a "nonstarter."

"To say that your model of an international law for cybersecurity is based on controlling media content or what people can say about the government isn't something we're interested in at all," he said. "There are other areas -- in particular, the theft of intellectual property -- because that's a major problem for the United States right now, where there are very different ideas about what's acceptable and what's not."

As cybersecurity grows in importance, the United States and its allies need to improve information-sharing and collaboration on cyber threats, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said today.

While the United States does share information about cyber threats with some allies via existing mechanisms such as the Five Eyes agreement, it does so on an ad hoc basis. There is no specific structure for sharing cyber intelligence despite the fact that cyber threats and attacks crisscross international boundaries, said Napolitano after a speech on cybersecurity at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Cybersecurity, first of all, it is inherently international, it respects no national boundaries," Napolitano said. "Second, there are no international protocols or frameworks on which to hang things. Thirdly, there is a wide disparity in technological capacity among different countries, so it's really an area that requires a lot of work, but the plain fact of the matter is we have to work internationally."

As Killer Apps has reported previously, Pentagon officials have argued that rapid information-sharing between allies is badly needed to defeat cyber attacks since the cyber domain transcends national borders. Hackers in one country going after networks in another can often disguise their attacks to appear as if they are emanating from servers in a third nation. As Napolitano pointed out today, not all countries have the ability to detect cyber threats and attacks quickly. This means that a country whose servers are hijacked may not even know that it is hosting an attack.

"This is one area where there will needs to be a lot of work over the next, I will say months and years, it is not well developed yet," said Napolitano.

In addition to improving information-sharing with its allies, the United States is working to establish international "norms of behavior" in the cyber arena that are based on the law of armed conflict. These norms would define acts of cyber war, espionage, and crime and would establish what constitutes an appropriate response to such acts. However, these efforts are being held up by nations such as Russia and China, Pentagon officials say.

Here's what Eric Rosenbach, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, told Killer Apps about the matter last month:

"We look at cyber just like you would look at any other form of warfare or military operations," Rosenbach said. "So the law of armed conflict applies, and within that you can already interpret what would be acceptable in cyberspace. We don't have a lot of case history to back up the customary aspect of it in international law, but we think that the framework is already there."

Russia and China are focused more on controlling citizens' activities on the Internet rather than limiting attacks on nations' critical infrastructure, he said.

"There are other countries, the Chinese and Russians in particular, that don't think the law of armed conflict is the best framework to view these things through and they focus much more heavily on control of information than they do on the security of crucial infrastructure or preventing the destruction of networks."

Rosenbach went on to call this a "nonstarter."

"To say that your model of an international law for cybersecurity is based on controlling media content or what people can say about the government isn't something we're interested in at all," he said. "There are other areas -- in particular, the theft of intellectual property -- because that's a major problem for the United States right now, where there are very different ideas about what's acceptable and what's not."