It interesting how different the United States and Russia fundamentally view the problem of Internet security and the militarization of cyberspace. The Russians view is that the solution should be through an international treaty akin to arms control of nuclear, biological, and other weapon systems. Another way to look at is that Russia prefers a state to state solution seeing the largest potential of attack coming from another state either through its military or intelligence service. The United States' rebuttal is that the distinction between civil and military uses of software and hardware is impossible. Thus the United States sees the problem of Internet security as not coming just from states but also individual civilian groups like criminals; the United States see the issue as emerging from within the state.
I see these negotiations as a sign of the times, the mixture of the public and private realms. Here you have a major security issue, in this case the security of the Internet and two sides proposing very different solutions, one rooted in state to state interactions and the other rooted in state to state interactions and an internal function of the state, policing. It will be interesting to see where these negotiations go and what side will ultimately "win."
