Cyber Scene #17 - Accelerating Responsible Tech Driving into the Future

Image removed.Cyber Scene #17

Accelerating Responsible Tech Driving into the Future

If those of you attending this January 2018 CES conference in Las Vegas were excited about where cybersecurity technology is headed, be mindful of the less appealing side of the double edge sword. It was bad timing with the generally concurrent release to the public of Intel chip vulnerabilities (Meltdown and Spectre). Class action suits are underway but Intel maintains it is not a flaw but a weakness. Per the 11 January Economist in "Silicon Meltdowns," there is no easy fix, and business favors speed over security, with more such issues anticipated.

The world economy is refocusing thanks to cyber. But beyond the general need to retrain the present general workforce for greater cyber job creation (see Cyber Scenes #15 and #16) there is also a loss of many labor-intensive jobs. Two examples of the reshaping the workforce due to tech advances come to mind. Thomas L. Friedman's New York Times op-ed "While You Were Sleeping" (he addresses the masses, not this readership) of 16 January 2018 discusses his visit to IBM's quantum computing lab and looks at AI's future; and/or visit Forks WA, "logging capital of the world" where "twilight" is dimming job prospects as programmed machines fell, stack and transport trees in minutes. Both Friedman and this author's personal Forks, WA source note that lives are improved and saved, respectively, but jobs present are lost. Loggers are not likely candidates for cybersecurity work. Likewise, the cyber world tech giants are beginning to face up to social responsibility. And one Intel tech vulnerability--or weakness-- is someone else's access--a Newtonian footnote perhaps.

On the same op-ed page as Tom Friedman's 16 Jan 2018 article is a likely unwitting companion piece, "Facebook Doesn't Like What It Sees in the Mirror," addressing the "inflection point," per author Noam Cohen, of Silicon Valley's awareness (commentary by Mark Zuckerberg) that the tech experts who may have viewed "their powerful inventions as neutral platforms" now consider the downside of technology and, per Facebook's CEO, are "steering users to healthier interactions." Zuckerberg adds, "History tells us that helping people is always a better path than shutting them out." Yes, but India, per author Cohen, said incomplete access to FB is a worse path. 

Will FB refashion social engineering tools to take into account the health of society broadly defined? This is not a new issue. Brilliant Cold War "radioactive reservist"-mathematician Tom Lehrer, still with us in body and spirit, delights and provokes with more-than-apocryphal Manhattan Project era lyrics, cited in the FB article: "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department, says Werner von Braun."The downstreaming of rockets and other technological inflection point discoveries are as topical today as then, even as this readership creates the future--with a seer's mindful conscience. And on that role of history and fake news (no, not Pope Francis on Eden),

More On Steering: Twitterpated By The Russians Or Read Squarely? 

As we consider steering of the future past, Twitter recalculated to date, per the 19 January 2018 WSJ:

  • 3,814 accounts with 175,993 postings during the 10-week 2016 election period from the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency, a "shadowy so-called troll farm" and an IRA that won't fund your retirement (this author's comment)
  • 677,775 U.S. persons impacted, and
  • over 50,000 bot accounts with Kremlin links related to U.S. election interference.

This data, per the WSJ, missed Senate Select Committee on Intelligence deadlines, but Ranking Member Mark Warner (D, VA) is "encouraged to see the company beginning to take responsibility and notify its users of Russia's influence campaign on its platform."

And Even More Steering: Crimea Sailing and Horizon Not So Clear

The Economist annual crystal ball (World in 2018), among many Cyber Scene worthy issues to be examined next month, looks at how cyber "Hacking Gets Physical." Fake news is impacting not only elections/infrastructure/cybercrime but also old fashioned physical safety. False GPS readings just east of the new Russian Crimean coast informed 20+ ships--not/not USMC amphibians--that they were 35km inland and not afloat. Economist Todd Humphreys, UT Austin, also worries about the New York Stock Exchange, as the National Physical Laboratory which runs the atomic clock could also be spoofed. Beyza Unal at Chatham House (a very well-regarded UK foreign policy think tank) is worried about nuclear weapons which might receive fake data. Dr. von Braun, we are full circle or, as Stephen Colbert once said: "Remember what they say about history...I forget."

NSA's Former Deputy Director Chris Inglis addressed more than a thousand, presumably non- or low-tech, members of the public across two cities and three presentations (Sarasota Institute for Lifetime Learning Global Issues, Sarasota and Venice, by subscription) on 9 and 10 January, a week before both the US House and Senate agree to underpin cybersecurity for six more years with a 265-164 and 65-34 respective vote to renew the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment Reauthorization Act (FISA Section702). Beginning with the Constitution, and providing a brief outline of NSA's cryptologic history, Chris Inglis explained how security and privacy in the cyber world are protected and aligned. His second presentation focused on Snowden and how damage mitigation continues. One audience member asked what good, if any, can be drawn from the experience. Chris Inglis pointed out that if your house burns down (this is a cyber arsonist of which we speak/write), you get a new house. But much is lost (things of inestimable value, sense of security, etc.) and you reinforce and rebuild a stronger, more resilient house, painfully and regrettably. He was also asked about what he thought of Snowden (your author will focus on the most relevant issues here). He noted in response that Snowden was not a whistleblower, and contrasted him with Daniel Ellsberg (think: "The Post" and Pentagon Papers). Salient among the other contrasts (GED, scant experience, little conscience vs. USMC captain, Harvard PhD, extensive experience, respect for the Constitution), Ellsberg tried to work through channels and stayed to stand trial to defend his beliefs in the democracy he was trying to protect. Snowden, in contrast, fled to China (not very democratic) and Russia (even less so) where he remains enjoying Moscow snowdens of yesterday (your author's comment, not that of Chris Inglis). And that IS physical.

For a perhaps less passionate yet related discussion of "FISA Section 702," please read on. Two incredibly experienced legal experts and law professors you may have seen on CNN or MSNBC, associated with the National Security Institute and on the faculty of the Scalia School of Law at George Mason University who have served across all three branches of US Government and in the private and academic sectors, examine Section 702 in readable yet considerable detail: Darren Dick, Director of Programs at the Scalia School of Law and former Staff Director for the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence, and Jamil Jaffer, Founder of the National Security Institute and former Associate Counsel to the President under the Bush Administration (both with incredible bios beyond these titles) offer an outstanding legal readout of this program. 

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