Cyber Wuh?

I’ve argued in the past that the centralisation of network hardware is a liability not only to civil defense but to personal liberty. It’s gratifying to see someone else make the case so well. If you want to understand the current dynamic between an open Internet that enables unparalleled social forces and a network infrastructure that allows vastly increased levels of surveillance, censorship and control, you have to read Hersh on the matter. He’s not the last word in the discussion, but his contribution is indispensable.

Seymour Hersh is a better, more generous man than I. He does a characteristically sober and thorough job of investigating purported threats to military and civilian communications networks in the latest edition of the New Yorker magazine. I might like him better if he had avoided using the words ‘Cyber’, ‘War’ and ‘Terror’ all in a single headline, but in fairness, sometimes to you have to use the language to negate its power.

I would also have preferred it had he not given such prominence to Richard Clarke’s fear-mongering, indulging him with a lengthy quote describing a catastrophic cyber war scenario with nationwide power cuts and planes ‘literally falling out of the sky'[*]. It takes him several more paragraphs to debunk Clarke’s ramblings as self-promoting opportunism, and he does so with trademark aplomb – describing in some detail the economic interests at stake in this discussion and drawing a compelling portrait of the desire for control that motivates many of the characters in the world of online security.

A more cynical writer might jam a refutation up front in order not to leave impatient readers with the mistaken impression that he might somehow be endorsing these views. Hersh, it seems, trusts his readers to work through 6000 words of calm analysis; and, damn him, his trust in me at least is never misplaced.

Alas, he suffers fools far more gladly than I. His style is one which provides all involved with more than enough rope. I suspect that this equality of opportunity is what allows him to maintain access to extremely privileged sources in defense circles.

But what makes Seymour Hersh so valuable as a reporter on the military is his ability to cut through the fog of war-talk, to make clear distinctions between the actual threats and their portrayal in popular dialogue. In this particular case, he renders the world a service by drawing a clear line between electronic espionage (a commonplace activity in which the intrusions come more often from Western allies then from enemies) and actual Cyber War. He lines up a number of analysts who cogently and calmly dispel the latter as largely a fabrication used to drum up support (and budget) for increased military influence in civilian communications networks.

Most infuriatingly, he does so without down-playing the truly disturbing lack of protections against attack that characterise much of our modern communications infrastructure.

His dry-eyed depiction of NSA Director and newly-minted commander of the US military’s Cyber War command Gen. Keith Alexander is a truly magisterial piece of work. Without once voicing a word of criticism, he lays out a portrait of a man who wants, effectively, to dismantle the open, distributed (and yes, sometimes even anarchic) Internet and replace it with the digital equivalent of the Maginot Line.

There exists an innate tendency among all people with any influence to say, “Wait, this Internet thing is completely out of our control. We need to do something!” While the first sentence may be true, they neglect the simpler conclusion: If the network can’t be controlled from any single point, it can’t easily be destroyed by a single, targeted attack.

… Which is exactly what the Internet was invented to prevent.

I’ve argued in the past that the centralisation of network hardware is a liability not only to civil defense but to personal liberty. It’s gratifying to see someone else make the case so well. If you want to understand the current dynamic between an open Internet that enables unparalleled social forces and a network infrastructure that allows vastly increased levels of surveillance, censorship and control, you have to read Hersh on the matter. He’s not the last word in the discussion, but his contribution is indispensable.


[*] Clarke’s words, of course. It’s those literal falls you have to worry about. The figurative ones aren’t nearly as dangerous.

Letter to a Young Turk

Grow up, kid. Brace yourself. We’re living in one of the best, most prosperous times in human history, yet humanity is still the venal, nasty, selfish brute that wandered the veldt millions of years ago. Enjoy the miracle of our success, then devote some time to understanding in detail what it is that keeps us from wiping ourselves off the face of the planet.

… And welcome to the world. You’re going to love it, even if it doesn’t always love you.

On hearing the news that the government of the UK was proposing to track every single phone call, email and website visit for all of its citizens, someone posted the following to a forum I frequent:

This really reads like something out of fiction. I did not think I’d see the day of such a government, but here I am at 22 years old and already, a modern, 1st world country is to the point where it feels the need and justification to monitor every action of it’s populace. The precedent here is staggering, terrifying and morally bankrupt.

There are only two things new about this:

  1. The technology used to perform the surveillance; and
  2. The fact that the government is even asking Parliament for permission.

Son, if you live long enough, you’ll see ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ nations perform a lot of acts that will make you ashamed, that will make you fear for the future. In my lifetime, I’ve seen Nixon bomb Cambodia, the Reverend Martin Luther King shot down in cold blood, along with Medgar Evers, Bobbie & John Kennedy and a bunch of others; I’ve seen students shot dead merely for expressing their opinion. I’ve seen government admit to selling drugs in order to finance guerrilla operations to subvert a foreign, democratically elected government. I’ve seen governments sell anti-tank missiles to their enemies.

I’ve seen enough appalling and apparently senseless miscarriages of justice to understand that human society –that chimera we call civilisation– is a fragile, ephemeral thing.

Danger lies on both sides of a very narrow path. Oh it’s all well and good to check the safety on your handgun and make noises about getting ourselves a new government, but when it comes right down to it, mythology notwithstanding, violence almost always begets more violence. Once that cycle starts, the one most willing to keep shooting is most likely to be the last one standing.

On the other side lies complacency and a willingness to buy a stake in the game. This may be inconceivable to you now, but the people who screamed loudest for deregulation of the finance system, for off-shoring labour and for vengeance after 9/11 were the very same ones placing daisies into the muzzles of M-16s just few decades ago. People change; they learn to acquiesce. They just want to be secure. They’d rather join a party than a cause.

The only thing holding things together is common decency, and even that is failing –at least in the US. When it’s no longer possible to object in civil tones, when disagreement is more about affiliation than information, when dissent and disenchantment are met not only with disapproval but disenfranchisement… it becomes harder and harder to keep the ship of state on an even keel.

The answer? Read your Thoreau. Understand the tactics that Gandhi and King used. Their tactics were not about Peace, Love and Bobby Sherman; they were dry-eyed assessments of the most effective way to move policy when violent rebellion seemed to be the only option –and a losing option, at that.

Grow up, kid. Brace yourself. We’re living in one of the best, most prosperous times in human history, yet humanity is still the venal, nasty, selfish brute that wandered the veldt millions of years ago. Enjoy the miracle of our success, then devote some time to understanding in detail what it is that keeps us from wiping ourselves off the face of the planet.

… And welcome to the world. You’re going to love it, even if it doesn’t always love you.

Doctor Me? Doctor You!

The BBC should sponsor a fanvid contest, in which the most implausible people play the Doctor. In the interests of actually being able to finish in a reasonable amount of time, contestants should create only the pre-credit opening scene.

I have a contest idea:

Given that:

  1. Doctor Who is wildly popular;
  2. Following each regeneration, the Doctor can end up looking like anyone;
  3. He can appear at any point in space and time;

The BBC should sponsor a ‘Doctor You’ fanvid contest, in which the most implausibly plausible people play the Doctor. In the interests of actually being able to finish in a reasonable amount of time, contestants should create only the pre-credit opening scene.

This whole idea is inspired by the realisation that Matt Smith looks TOO MUCH like the Doctor. He’s not entirely credible because he’s too plausible.

See, David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston are really not unusual-looking. Their only visible eccentricity is in their clothing, and even that isn’t something that would leap out if they walked past you on the High Street.

And that’s why we experience delight when we see, for example, Tennant yelling, ‘Allons-y!’ and leaping out of a spaceship in a suicidal suborbital descent, down through a Victorian skylight, just in time to send the Time Lords back into oblivion.

One look at Matt Smith’s features, though, and we’re more inclined to say, ‘Oh well, he would do that, wouldn’t he?’ Worse, we’re left slightly mystified when he demonstrates normal human emotions, which is a good deal of the time.

So let’s play with the assumption that Doctor could look like anybody. That there’s really no reason he wasn’t more than slightly Sheldon Cooper-esque back when he was in his 200s. That he might be a corpulent middle-aged middle-brow more likely to yell ‘Trot!’ than ‘Run!’.

None of these details really matter. Not nearly so much as the fact that this is a (mostly) human character wandering alone in the Cosmos with the fate of civilizations resting on his –or her– shoulders. That’s character enough, don’t you think?

Anyway, everyone should make an entry. Here’s mine….

Read more “Doctor Me? Doctor You!”