Weaponising Information: Enter an Age of Unbridled Hyperconnectivity
ssi.armywarcollege.edu
ssi.armywarcollege.edu
Before I dropped out of Georgia Tech, I was going to publish a research paper explaining my reasoning for "Data Terrorism".
This article didn't touch on my points, I'm focused on weaponizing personal information. Atlanta is split between two counties, and one of them (DeKalb) used to have a website which published booking information. This allowed private websites to crawl the data and setup "ransom"-esque business models (pay us to delete your entry form our site).
I guess if you're ignorant, you would say "oh, well that's only for criminals"...but no. They're doing the same thing for all public records.
I recently found out that my 1st grade teacher filed for bankruptcy and foreclosed on her home around 2010....and her mortgage was around 250k. This came off a simple Google search of her name.
There is no reason that I should have ever known that.
Take into account this is largely a cultural opinion. It is well know that in Norway, your salary and taxes are public. So you mosty know how much everyone is making.
It is possible that something unthinkable today is tomorrow cultural norm.
But it's important to note that information was never this easy to access.
It's one thing to be able to find out such information on someone in the context of in important financial transaction, it's quite another to be able to easily and casually find out such information for no reason besides curiosity.
I think the traditional difficultly in accessing "public records" was an important feature of having them "public." Now that they're so easy to access, we should perhaps re-think how public they really should be.
What's wrong about this?
There's a bunch of busybodies who have noting better to do than screw over people's present and future on account of their past.
It's not a stretch to imagine the kind of person who cares whether your grass is 3/8" longer than the HOA says it should be showing up at a PTA meeting to complain about how someone who once went bankrupt or starred in an adult film is inherently not qualified to teach kindergarten.
That's not something we want to enable so that's why making stuff readily accessible to the public isn't good. If someone wants to dig then let them but digging up someone's past should be hard enough work that you don't do it on a whim and it doesn't scale.
new morals would develop around reality rather than the fake image we are able to project. with constant surveillance i hope we enter into a more honest world.
> new morals would develop around reality rather than the fake image we are able to project. with constant surveillance i hope we enter into a more honest world.
No, clearly not. The mistake you're making is assuming everyone will be affected equally.
What would actually happen is some people would get burned, badly and forever, by the lack of privacy (or openness, as you call it). Everyone else will either live in fear of the possibility or go about ignorantly assuming it'll never happen to them.
There's value in being able to put your past mistakes behind you or being able to keep information from those who would do you harm.
Recently, some bloggers from one polar end of the American political spectrum mistook me for a blogger from the opposite polar end (we have somewhat similar names). They proceeded to dox me (email and physical addresses, phone number, the works) and I had a simply terrible week. Reminded me of the part in the Terminator where Arnie starts going through the Sarah Connors in the phone book, line by line.
The Army is fundamentally a real estate focused organization - their role is to take and hold territory.
The Navy is about slow influence - control of the seas allows you can deploy and retract the threat of physical violence depending on the political situation.
The Air Force is about the ability to deliver devastating violence on space-age timelines. But they still require targets.
My cautiously optimistic view is that these forms of violence become far less relevant when geography is no longer the key dividing line in tribal affiliation. You will see a rise in low level violence, and that will be associated with a decline in the primacy of the nation state. But it will reduce the risk of globally devastating conflict.
Not necessarily. A civil war between new global tribes* would still be a globally devastating conflict.
* not necessarily the same ones everywhere
http://www.johntreed.net/sittingducks.html
BTW, have you heard about the Russian Zircon missiles?
Ballistic missile submarines are incredible. Each Ohio class has 24 Trident missiles with up to 8 warheads each. That makes each one a bigger nuclear power than everyone except the US, UK, Russia, France, China and Israel.
The Navy's nuclear attack submarines are also fearsome. Much quieter than old nuclear boats, fast and able to be anywhere and fire cruise missiles.
As you point out carriers are now vulnerable. But they can be held out of range and aircraft refueled. They can then deploy aircraft a long way away from them.
1. maintaining logistical access for the Army/Marines (aircraft from carriers, surface combatants, and attack submarines)
2. doing the Air Force's job with lower latency where there are insufficient basing opportunities, especially in low-intensity situations (aircraft from carriers and missiles from surface combatants)
3. higher-survivability forces for the Air Force's job in high-intensity global conflicts (ballistic missile submarines)
Hostile or disruptive virtual mobilization worldwide;
The collapse of privacy, secrecy, and operational security;
Penetration, disruption, exploitation, and destruction of data storage and transmission, as well as the use of data and data-enabled systems;
and finally, The unfettered manipulation of perceptions, material outcomes, and consequential strategic decisions through the strategic employment of various forms of information."
Says the same government still asking for crypto/device backdoors! Auuuuuuuugh!
Governments (and their agents) should not have impunity for misbehaviour in private.
Governments should not have the level of strategic advantage over their populations that they've been used to. They should feel imperiled by popular wrath if they earn it.
But, see, governments always have that. They always have a bigger gun than you do.
You want to shine light on government activities. That's good, and you are right to want it. But the cost is that the government will also be able to shine even more light on your activities.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/fourth-...