#CCLKOW: unCyber
This week’s piece is written by Jill from team KOW. Read the piece, consider it and join the discussion @cclkow!
I kicked up a bit of a fuss over on Twitter, regarding a simple premise — cyber warfare vulnerabilities are a choice we can eschew.
https://twitter.com/jsargentr/status/787182403697737728
It is based on a simple premise. Security and defence are about priorities, distinguishing those things you must have or defend from that which you want. Unlike physical obstacles we must deal with (the seas), immutable human traits (migration), or needs (currency), cyber is a choice. Furthermore, given its relative infancy, it is one that can be un-made. At the very least, given the rising costs and consequences of cyber attack, it is one that deserves consideration.
Reflecting upon the last socio-economic revolution, The Age of Industry should weigh heavily upon our minds at this moment in time, urging us to think soberly at this new threshold. As the full reckoning of the costs of mass industrialisation is emerging in the toll on the climate and environment, it is no Sisyphean* task to stop to take good account of the full costs and consequences of a cyber-dominated world. What might have been done differently with those capabilities had their effect been known?
Before we rush heedlessly into an increasingly networked, remote, and autonomous existence, the assumptions regarding the virtues and necessity of this realm should be questioned. While we spend a treasure on cyber-defence and the hacker is cheap, can we continue up to overspend enough to avoid the worst? While we spend further treasure on legacy systems and upgrades, what better solutions do we miss? What documents and sources might we lose? While humanity multiplies, does the elimination of labour make sense? Should we, at the end of the day, be wrapping ourselves in a doomsday device of our own choosing?
Now, while I might argue that a radically de-cybered stance for the US is plausible and offers some virtues, here I will only set the bar at a sound interrogation of the issues.
Given the risks and vulnerabilities they include, what are the hard questions regarding networked, remote, and autonomous world should we be asking? No need to limit this to the military, think broadly into society and the economy.
