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Bob Gourley

The Battle For Your Head Is Underway: VR from Oculus, Sony, HTC/Valve competing at GDC2016

GDC2016 is the largest game developer conference in the globe. By all accounts it will be the biggest yet for virtual reality. It has become so huge a sub-conference has been organized called the Virtual Reality Developers Conference (VRDC).  It expands beyond games to help developers produce immersive entertainment of all kinds, from games to CG movies to filmed experiences to simulations.

Oculus Rift’s consumer version (called CV1) is already available for pre-order and its hardware specs are well known. But we expect to see more announcements around the software platform and a great deal of buzz about entertainment titles available. We do not expect to see an announcement on availability of the new Oculus designed touch controllers. For now it ships with an Xbox controller.

oculus-accessories

Note, Samsung’s GearVR is powered by Oculus software and will very likely be able to run VR software the CV1 does.  Look for more on this this week too.

samsung-gear-vr-oculus

The Sony PlayStation VR is a console-based VR headset. So high end gamers will not need to invest in another PC to use the Sony VR. This is a huge plus. Release date will probably be Q2, maybe late June.

playstationvr

The HTC/Valve Vive is available for pre-order. They are focused for now on providing SteamVR games.  If you are a hard core gamer, this may be the approach for you.

htc-vive-set.0

Overall, I believe if you are a home user the Sony VR path may be the best. Enterprise users will want to consider the Oculus path. Hard core gamers may want to leverage all these options.

What If This Is The Most Important Thing The Government Can Do To Enhance Our Cybersecurity and Prepare us for Cyber War?

soviet-military-powerIn December 1998 when transitioning into a job doing intelligence support to DoD computer network defense, one of my mentors reminded me of a Reagan-era publication that helped the public better understand the Soviet threat called “Soviet Military Power.”  This document was based on the intelligence. It provided the best possible understanding of Soviet military hardware and operational concepts but was produced at an unclassified level so it could be broadly disseminated. My mentor was making the point to me that in my new role leading intelligence support to operational cyber defense I should champion something analogous in the cyber security domain.

I believe my mentor was right and advocate this idea whenever possible. Consider this theory: if more people are really aware of the cyber threat, they will take action. Citizens will better defend their portions of cyberspace and will also be more informed voters, meaning politicians will be better informed and pay more attention to cyber policy issues. Raising awareness of the cyber threat can also motivate a better the defensive posture of businesses.

I was given reason to think of this topic again on 9 March 2016 when DIA published a video capturing key background on this publication. See it at this link and embedded below:

When you watch that, imagine what something like this could do in the cyber war domain.

Do you agree the nation could benefit from something like this produced by the intelligence community focused on the cyber threat?

Till then you have other options on the threat. One I hope you take advantage of is my book The Cyber Threat.

Ensure your workforce is tracking the cyber threat by signing up for the OODA Daily Pulse.  This will provide strategic warning of threats and info on mitigation strategies.

And we most strongly recommend you review and track our section here on Cyber War, where we capture insights from some of the best thinkers in cyber conflict to help assess where we are and where we are going in this critical domain.

Related Posts:

Towards a Cyber Deterrent: Are we getting any closer?

What the New U.S. Intelligence Strategy Says About Cyber Threats

You think your business is primed to deal with any cyber threat – but what if it’s an inside job?

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Fred Kaplan Explores The Secret History of Cyber War

41+Omr+dbOL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_Fred Kaplan is the national security columnist for Slate and author of four other bestselling books examining some of the nation’s most significant strategic issues. His book, The Wizards of Armageddon, captures the dynamics in the early nuclear age including the critical to understand story of the small group of men who devised plans and shaped policies on how to use the Bomb. It is a critical foundation in the canon of knowledge around this important chapter in national security affairs.

With his new book, Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War,  Kaplan dives into a topic which could end up being just as transformational to national security affairs as the nuclear age was.  The book opens fast and builds from there, providing insights from research that even professionals directly involved in cyber operations will not have gleaned. Famed author John le Carre described it this way: “A book that grips, informs, and alarms, finely researched and lucidly related“. I have to agree.

The reason to study the past is to inform today’s decisions, and there is a dire need for this type of research today.  The discipline of cyber warfare is still very young and the people charged with leadership in this domain are too frequently left to their own to discover the history of their profession.  This book captures all the key elements of foundational cyber conflict knowledge in a way that can help today’s national security strategists operate and plan for the future.

It also has lessons for enterprise security professionals. The only defenses that work in business are ones that are informed by an awareness of the nature of the threat, and this book does a very good job of underscoring the serious and dynamic threats that face us all in and through our interconnected information technology.

My view: You will love this book.

Additional Reading:

The Air Traffic Control System: We all assumed it was vulnerable, but now we know

If You Drive A Car, Or Know Someone Who Does, You Must Read This…

What You Need To Know About The Administration’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan

Like Kip in Napoleon Dynamite, We love Technology

The Security Yearbook by Richard Stiennon

Breakthrough In Energy We Should All Track: New green technology generates electricity ‘out of thin air’

 

Ransomware Evolves: Entire Hospital Including Emergency Rooms Disrupted

Cybersecurity and business risk professionals have watched ransomware evolve from a minor nuisance to a major threat capable of holding multiple systems at risk. Evidence of the rapidly evolving ransomware threat now includes an ongoing attack against Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles. The attack was so bad the hospital has had its operations disrupted. Many patients had to be moved to other facilities and even emergency rooms were impacted.

For more details on the attack see this NBC Los Angles Report

Having seen organizations suffer from this sort of attack I can tell you it is never pretty. Depending on the variety of ransomware (the most common is CryptoWall) it can be very hard to remove, especially since it replicates itself to any drive or media attached to the computer it first landed in.

How does the ransomware usually get in? This is a good question. The typical organization already has firewalls, anti virus solutions, encrypted data solutions, data backups, network monitoring and security information management tools to hold data on how all that is working. Most will also have in place user training programs. But still the malware gets in. This may be the most important point. The malware gets in. You can block and patch and try your hardest to prevent, but the bad guys will innovate and eventually malware gets in.

Which leads to this advice:

  • Work hard to prevent ransomware and other malware attacks by using best practices, and have your approach validated by an external assessment
  • But understand that this is an evolving threat, and eventually malware will get in
  • So, prepare for breach, design for containment, and design for rapid recovery.
  • And stay agile. Remember the threat will evolve.

Speaking of threats, we recommend every enterprise executive make use of our daily Threat Brief, a product capturing the latest on strategic cyber threats in a quick to digest newsletter. The strategic warning we provide there will help you better prepare against the dynamic threat.

 

 

 

What You Need To Know About The Administration’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan

The Whitehouse released a plan on 9 Feb 2016 that should be read and understood by cybersecurity professionals everywhere.

Here is my take on the most important point:

  • Whoever you are, wherever you are, you need to understand you are responsible for defending your technology. Do not think that you can abdicate or delegate this responsibility.
  • But the fact is that you cannot do things on your own. So think through who you need to work with in defending your technology.

Neither of those were said in the plan. But everything I read in the plan underscores their importance. You must defend yourself.

Those two defense points are very scalable, from your home to any small business to the largest enterprise. Don’t think the government or anyone else will defend your technology. That is your job. Accepting that fact does not mean you have to do it alone. Think about partners now.

As for the plan, here are the key points, taken from the Factsheet titled “Cybersecurity National Action Plan”:

  • The plan calls for establishing a “Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity.” This is may be a good step, but remember this type of strategic action does not produce quick results. I like the concept because it reminds me of some of the things done by President Clinton and President Bush on Cybersecurity, both of which produced solid recommendations for change. I really like the fact that it is being proposed as bi-partisan. Maybe that will help conclusions stick.
  • New action is called for to modernize government IT. Also a very good step. Many of the antiques in government cannot be defended and should have been replaced long ago.
  • The plan calls for a campaign to encourage people to use multi-factor authentication in everything. This is a good thing to do. It is one of the most important steps we can take to make it harder on the bad guys.
  • The plans calls for the creation of a federal chief information security officer. This may also be a good thing, if it is a position of power. Power in government flows from the President to Cabinet level positions. Everyone else is staff. Will be interesting to see who the CISO reports to.
  • Establish an action plan to enhance the ability of citizens to exchange information with government in ways that keep it secure.  This is also a great step.

There are many other positives of this plan, but those points seem to be the most significant.

But back to the main point of this post.  The most important thing to remember is you must defend your own IT.

 

Additional Reading:

The Air Traffic Control System: We all assumed it was vulnerable, but now we know

If You Drive A Car, Or Know Someone Who Does, You Must Read This…

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Fred Kaplan Explores The Secret History of Cyber War

Like Kip in Napoleon Dynamite, We love Technology

The Security Yearbook by Richard Stiennon

Breakthrough In Energy We Should All Track: New green technology generates electricity ‘out of thin air’

Leader Of U.S. Intelligence Community Delivers Clear and Unambiguous Warning of Cyber Threat

Time for another clear and unambiguous warning on the growing cyber threat, this one in testimony to Congress by the leader of the U.S. Intelligence Community:

Security of Information systems: Allow me to turn now to a transnational threat that is, at present, difficult to measure — the threat of attack against our information systems and information-based infrastructures. Hackers, criminal groups, and foreign intelligence services consider these systems lucrative targets, as evidenced by the growing number of intrusions into corporate and financial information systems. … I am concerned that the threat to our information systems will grow in coming years as the enabling technologies to attack these systems proliferate and more countries and groups develop new strategies that incorporate such attacks.

Our efforts to identify and characterize the threat are continuing. I am encouraged by our progress over the past year. We are developing cooperative efforts within the community, and establishing valuable links with other agencies outside the Community and outside government. We have a lot more to do, however. We must identify sufficient resources to work on this problem and work through many of the legal and regulatory obstacles to collecting needed intelligence.

You can read the full testimony on the CIA.gov website. You will need to go to the archives page. That warning was delivered in February 1996 by Director of Central Intelligence John M. Deutch. While there you can find similar warnings delivered every year up to today. You can add to those the warnings of every Director of National Intelligence, which you can read on their site since 2005.

With that as context I would like to underscore that threat warnings are good, and having every leader of the U.S. intelligence community help underscore the seriousness of this threat is important. But like in every other warning the intelligence community gives, decision-makers can fail to act.

Could I be considered a troll for bringing up this old history with such a click-bate title? Maybe. But you have to admit, there is a huge point to be made here. We should all do what we can to be aware of the threat. But awareness is not enough. We have to do something about it. And by “we” I don’t just mean policy makers. Policy is important, but leaders must act at all levels. In government, in industry, in academia, in non-profits and at home.

There were many other warnings through the years. See George Tenet’s 1998 warning at: An Assessment on the Cyber Threat

What do you think about this? Seems like we have had plenty of warnings, but have failed to act. So one thing is for sure, the current situation we find ourselves in is not an intelligence failure.

More on things cyber:

A Conversation With Marc Andreessen: The impact of emerging tech on jobs, training, education and home life

This post is the second in a series based on a discussion with Marc Andreessen. The first was on: AI, Robotics, Jobs and Accelerating The Future

 

Gourley: Can you provide more context on what kind of education and training?

Andreessen: It is fair to say I am biased on that subject but my view is that the quantitative skills will be in greater demand: Math, Economics, Science, Engineering, Computer Science. The requirements for these are rising at much higher rates so their premium is rising. All of us should seek to self educate on these when we can and this is what we should encourage our youth to pursue. We should of course value other more qualitative skills like history, politics, arts and culture, but understand that this is an increasingly technical world and even those people will need more understanding about how the world really works. If you want to be as relevant as possible, get as many quantitative skills as you can and keep learning.

Of course this is not a zero sum game. The computer scientist can learn history, for example, and it is very important to have broad context. But it is pretty clear this is a technology focused economy.

Gourley: You said above that technology creates jobs. So how can we accelerate that?

Andreessen: This is another key question we all need to spend more time on. We should all keep asking ourselves, since the effect of technology on jobs creation is well understood and since as tech automates it will create higher quality jobs, how do we accelerate the creation of new businesses, products and industries to create the greatest good in terms of new opportunities?

First an example. Consider the old concept of a company town. An entire town might exist to serve the large factory for the firm, for example, Kodak and its company town in Rochester New York. For years the town consisted of people that either worked for Kodak or served those that did. When the market changed on Kodak the town and its people suffered. What if instead of the town serving one factory it served six? Then people would have more opportunity to serve and less chance of being on the losing side of a market disruption. Now take that lesson into the globally connected technology-based economy we have now where there is more opportunity to create opportunity and serve industries far from your geographic location.

So one factor we can leverage to accelerate job creation is to enable success of new industries that can create new businesses that can leverage globally connected skilled labor and globally connected consumers. Tech firms operated this way now. Most other industries are moving in this direction. But we need to take steps to accelerate this approach into education, healthcare, transportation, farming, finance and all the services sectors to expand opportunities for all.

We also absolutely must ask ourselves how to keep the old incumbent companies from holding back progress. The old ways of doing things are too frequently just designed to thwart the innovation we need to accelerate the higher quality jobs. Consider, for example, the old industries whose entrenched lobbying firms build up regulations that cause unnecessary impediments for innovators. How do we mitigate that behavior and ensure the old firms do not hold up progress?

We also need to ask ourselves how to ensure we keep global markets open. And need to continually think about how to make it easier to start new companies. How do we encourage entrepreneurship and innovation?

These are the big questions we should be thinking about.

Gourley: I’d like to ask your views about another scenario. Projections are that by 2020 there will be over 100 Billion Internet-connected devices, and easily 1 Trillion sensors generating data around us all. In the U.S. the average home will likely have between 300 to 600 high powered chips in devices capable of communicating directly with each other and with the traditional Internet connected computers in the house. In this world of the near future, who will be there to help homeowners optimize and secure their environments?

Andreessen: You bring to mind a company we have invested in called 21. They are a bitcoin company building a specialized bitcoin computer designed to help developers create applications that can buy, sell and trade bitcoin. Today their purpose built computer has utility for developers. But consider the very likely evolution of this type of solution. Consider software that runs on all your devices in your home and in your car that is continually mining (producing) bitcoin. Not only does this mean that your devices are producing something of value for you when they are not in use, but now they can exchange more trusted information and even value in ways that better serve you. Take for example your car on a trip to the airport. You wonder which garage to park in and your car guides you to the one closest to your terminal and then takes you to the best available empty spot, and when it is time to pay it automatically pays with the bitcoin it has generated. This will be simple and convenient and efficient.

Now back to your home, with each of your devices communicating together and with workloads able to be distributed over them you will be able to operate them as a connected supercomputer in your home. Chips on everything from your toothbrush to your toaster will be able to process workloads as you direct, drawing very little power in doing so. When you are not mining bitcoin, you may want to focus your home supercomputer to help find cures for disease or research other scientific pursuits. There are so many possible uses for this new capability.

Gourley: Seems like a risk we are introducing in doing this is the risk that we are potentially giving cyber criminals of the future more direct access to our personal lives and private information.

Andreessen: There is absolutely more work to be done here but a great deal is underway and my sense is security needs are pushing more and more control to the cloud. The many chips and systems in the home will need to be expertly configured and managed and overseen and that is a perfect use case for managed professional services from the cloud. Chips will need to be tethered in some way to cloud services under the homeowners control but managed by trusted security teams and automated processes. Simply having a home firewall is not the answer here. The homes of the future will require administrative solutions that operate at scale and that means the cloud.

Consider today’s example of the Tesla and how its software is loaded and managed. Most other modern cars have ports for mechanics to plug into to check and manage the vehicle. Guess what, mechanics, although they have valuable skills, are generally not going to be as proficient as loading software as they are at maintaining high performance engines. All the Tesla software loads are controlled through cloud services, the mechanic does not need to touch it at all. There are lessons for the future house from this model.

Gourley: Thank you Marc.

Andreessen: My pleasure.

A Conversation With Marc Andreessen: AI, Robotics, Jobs and Accelerating The Future

If you are an enterprise technologist or if you love thinking about the incredible future we can build for ourselves you no doubt already track the very interesting Marc Andreessen. His open sharing of views and context via his blog, on YouTube and his Twitter Feed are a great source of information for those seeking insights into the emerging tech scene and we recommend following him there for continuous context.

We had an opportunity to ask Marc for some clarifying thoughts on his views and present them in this two-part series. This first post is on AI, robotics and the future of jobs, the second dives into education, training and some concepts that may help us think through future uses of technology in our lives. A second post in this series will dive into some of the implications of future trends on education, training and our home lives.

Gourley: Marc can you provide any context that can help enterprise technologists think through the potential of disruptions to the workforce that come from advances in technology?

Andreessen: Disruptions like those of the last 300 years will certainly continue and they will continue to bring better, higher quality jobs.

Gourley: But there are those that say AI and Robotics and software that eats the world will destroy jobs.

Andreessen: There have always been those that say that and they have been proven wrong so consistently there are names for their specious thinking. In economic theory this is known as the “Lump of Labor Fallacy” which contends that the amount of work is a fixed sum. This is also at times called the “Luddite Fallacy” to draw attention to the early views of technology haters who thought that there would just be a limited amount of work and automating any of it would put the humans out of a job. Whatever you call this fallacy it has been debunked by real world observation. Technology produces jobs rather than destroying them, and it produces better, safer jobs and generates rising incomes.

Simply put, by applying technology to areas that have not had it before you get more output for the same input. This is the reason you do it, this results in industry that does more with less and generate more value by doing so. That value contributes to the overall economy. The efficiencies also builds new wealth and creates new markets for products and services and new businesses. In short, if you are concerned about job growth you should want more technology, not less.

There is plenty of evidence that underscores this, including the employment cycle we are going through right now. When unemployment was rising after 2008 the proponents of the Luddite Fallacy popped up again but innovation continued, and fortunately the results are clear. Job growth has been strong and positive. There are more new jobs in both the U.S. and globally than ever before.

Gourley: But there has been disruption, right? And all indications are that technology led change will continue to impact every industry and all levels of government.

Andreessen: If the past is any guide yes it continues and all indications are it accelerates.

Gourley: So what do we do to better prepare ourselves, especially our youth, for this change? Are there impacts on education?

Andreessen: This is a key question and one we don’t spend enough time on. To explore it I think we should first look at the premium that the world puts on education and training. The world is getting more and more connected and with that connectivity more of us can take advantage of great opportunities for advancement. But most opportunities will come to those with technical skills. The greatest pain and disruption will come to those who earn a living with unskilled labor. So clearly the positive approach to enhancing opportunities for more is through better, more ubiquitous education and skills training.

The global move is towards unskilled labor going away. This is another 300 year trend that is expected to continue and even accelerate. In farming, for example, the introduction of tractors meant less labor was required for plowing fields and many of those unskilled jobs were eliminated. Today in every industry there are unskilled jobs that will be increasingly downsized so those people who can only survive by unskilled labor will find that their hard lifestyle gets harder. Education and training can help those who currently do unskilled labor and is an absolute must for our youth.

Gourley: I have seen videos of mines, the largest mines in the world, operating with no miners, and that is a disruption, but it is hard to argue that society would want to keep sending people underground in this dangerous work. Is this what you mean?

Andreessen: Coal and other mining are on their way out for labor. The industry will become more efficient and productive by software and machine automation. Expect more skilled labor, designers, engineers, operators, analysts, but much less of the unskilled workforce. All of us should sympathize with those unskilled laborers who lose work because of this, but you are right that society should not be subjecting people to mining. It is unacceptable and years from now people will look back on us and wonder why we could ever consider not replacing those jobs as fast as we can. It is true we need to put thought into this disruption and create new things for people to do, but this will only work if we pay enough attention to education and training.

 

The second installment of this series will focus more on education, training and what to do to accelerate positive change. Get an early look by signing up for our newsletter, the CTOvision Daily.

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