• Skip to content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

CTOvision.com

Context for the CTO, CIO, CISO and Data Scientist

  • About
    • Contact Us
    • CTOvision Pro
    • Submit A Technology Or Company For Review
    • Newsletter Subscriptions
    • Privacy Policy
    • About Crucial Point
    • Media Partnerships
    • Contributing to the CTOvision.com Blog
  • Tech Guide
    • Cloud Computing
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Mobile
    • Big Data and Analytics
    • Robots
    • Internet of Things
    • Cyber Security
    • Cryptocurrency and Blockchain
    • Tech Topics
    • Disruptive Tech
    • Research Library
  • Entertainment
    • SciFi
  • Cyber War
  • The Boardroom
  • Careers
    • Training and Education
  • Newsletter
You are here: Home / Cyber War / Cyber Security / How Cyberpunk Revived Cybersecurity

How Cyberpunk Revived Cybersecurity

AdamElkus June 11, 2012

39
SHARES
ShareTweetSubscribe

This post was cowritten by Adam Elkus and Alex Olesker

Our last post looked at the downside of how cyberpunk and digital dualism helped contribute to a distorted understanding of cyberspace and bad policy. Yes, it might seem a bit ridiculous at first glance: would we blame Jules Verne for faults with naval submarine warfare doctrine and operations? But the idea of a separation between cyberspace and "real" life, originating with science fiction, has been an overall malignant influence on cyber policy. Yet we aren't going to completely throw our cyberpunk toys away. There are a variety of ways in which cyberpunk foresaw the future of cyber operations.

First, we should explain a bit about what cyberspace is. Just like terrorism, something as vast as cyberspace will perhaps never be conclusively defined. In the simplest terms, technologist and CTO Bob Gourley defines cyberspace as our interconnected information technology. Dan Kuehl of the NDU iCollege offers a more in depth definitions in his chapter in Cyberpower and National Security : "a global domain within the information environment whose distinctive and unique character is framed by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum to create, store, exchange, and exploit information via inderdepedent and interconnected networks using information-communication technologies." As Kuehl argues, interdependent and interconnected information networks and systems are composed of three interrelated dimensions: physical platforms, systems, and infrastructures that provide connectivity, massive amounts of informational content, and human cognition that results from greatly increased access to content and increased decision power. Cyberspace as it exists today is a designed environment built for the use of information, interaction, and communication, but to call it a "man-made" environment is to misunderstand it entirely. Kuehl and Sam Liles both note that cyberspace's physical characteristics come from forces and phenomena that exist and occur in the natural world. The fact that humans need manmade devices and technologies to exploit cyberspace is little different from other "man-made" environments like....the sea, air, and space.

Because technologies and systems operate through and on cyberspace, this makes two national security related exploitations of cyberspace possible: information-based warfare and information warfare. Commonly conflated, they are in fact very different. Network-centric warfare, for example, utilizes cyberspace to create greater speed, decision power, and decisiveness. The current American system of precision-targeting, unmanned aerial vehicles, networked platforms, and command and control relies on cyberspace, just as late 19th century warfare exploited embryonic cyberspace in the form of telegraphic networks. Information warfare, in contrast, is an umbrella term for the use of information to destroy information in the form of electronic warfare (EW) and computer network operations (CNO). As Kuehl notes, cyberspace exists as a blending of electronics and electromagnetic energy, and the first major exploitation of cyberspace occured with the transmission of information in the form of dots and dashes over a wire. The "Victorian Internet" morphed into something greater with the invention of wireless, the telephone, radio--and decades later--the electronic computer. Kuehl argues that cyberspace is unique because it employs the electromagnetic spectrum as a means of movement, and any definition of cyberspace must begin not with the activities that take place within the domain but rather on the physical characteristics that set it apart from others.

We increasingly interact with cyberspace through augmented reality. As Liles observes, this was one major aspect of cyberspace that William Gibson's work in fact did accurately predict:

For quite some time the reality of cyber has been over laid upon the physical reality. ... Numerous iPhone applications exist to allow the person to interact with the cyberspace around them. From tours, to GPS navigation with advertisements included the two spaces are shore and sea interacting at that beach. Augmented reality is why unmanned aerial vehicles can work. Augmented reality is the heads up display in a fighter jet giving friend and foe recognition for targeting devices. Information through a variety of  interfaces is placed into the physical reality. As seamless we already see the physical reality being modeled and data places into the cyberspace why shouldn’t the opposite be true? What hasn’t existed until the smart phone and now special glasses is a mechanism for accessing the information realm. Though with geo cacheing and a variety of games that is changing.

Augmented reality, as Liles notes, allows users to overlay information in graphical form, increasing the sensory abilities of the user. With AR, soldiers can make friend or foe identification with the aid of big data, salesmen at corporate mixers can make more carefully targeted networking, and police officers could rapidly access arrest records on everyone they encounter in a neighborhood. My own personal use of AR has changed my life just with GPS on my iPhone, allowing me to track down elusive hole-in-the wall sushi joints in San Francisco.

The use of augmented reality leads us into three useful points about cyberspace and national security. First, just because an action is targeted against someone's cyberspace does not mean the competition should be viewed symmetrically. Talk of Iran retaliating for Stuxnet in cyberspace misses the point: Iran, a sponsor and frequent source of terrorism, has abundant and more efficient means of killing people it doesn't like besides code. The ability of the United States to dominate the escalation ladder also complicates Iran's ability to use force against the United States in cyberspace for political objectives, and there would be little point for Iran to employ force against the US unless it somehow desired a shift in the US' political behavior. Might Iran do so through cyber-proxies? Perhaps, but due to the importance of force as communication, proxies would have to somehow be able to communicate Iran's desire for a shift in US policy towards Iran without the US deciding to utilize its abundant conventional advantages to retaliate against Iran. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in cyberspace is not guaranteed to stay in cyberspace. This doesn't mean Iran will not retaliate in a significant manner, but it would have to do so in a way that would either constrain the US from retaliating or minimize the possible damage from such retaliation.

Second, the importance of information power is to augment existing capabilities. As Martin Libicki argues, operational cyberwarfare can heavily augment the effect of conventional operations and weapons. EW platforms in previous conflicts fried electronics and jammed communications, depriving military forces of the ability to communicate. Similarly, computer network operations will deny, disrupt, corrupt, and confuse important adversary capabilities. The DARPA program Plan X's emphasis on hardened cyber systems for the projection of weapons and a "map" of systems and networks for targeting reveals just how existing cyberweapons will be more useful as an operational weapon rather than necessarily a strategic weapon for destroying civilian targets. This should not surprise us--as Sean Lawson points out, infrastructure attacks against the civilian population during a time of total warfare did not bring Germany to heel and the history of disaster research should give us optimism about surviving "cyber-doom."

This is not to deny that cyber operations will make future operations look very different on the tactical level. And this is where cyberpunk actually has been very influential. In the cyberpunk anime franchise Ghost in the Shell, the action focuses on a combined spec ops and cyber warfare unit called Section 9. Section 9's operatives are principally selected for their ability to carry out traditional domestic intelligence and direct action skills such as criminal investigation and special operations. However, Section 9 extensively uses cyberspace to both enhance and carry out their operations. Because of the manner in which information networks have colonized every aspect of life (including basic biology) in Ghost in the Shell's not-so-distant universe, cyber exploitation and attack is necessary for basic police investigation and national security operations against enemies of the state. Hacking and control of weapons and even cyborg body parts is common, as is the commandeering of surveillance cameras and facility systems for tactical operations.

Sound far-fetched? The special operations site SOFREP ran an interesting feature by Uri Fridman that would suggest otherwise. Special operations direct action will leverage cyber exploitation and attack on enemy systems in a way already pioneered by Red Teamers combining physical penetration with hacking to test sensitive facilities:

In past operations where my team was involved, we supported those units in two different phases.

  1. We provided the initial digital recon of the target, including inside information about sentry schedule, different access routes (those that were locked during the night hours and those open but monitored), number of personnel inside the facility during the different times of the day, hardware and software information, provided a complete site casing including detailed sketches based on the design blueprints extracted from a computer, and a week’s worth of daily activity logs hour per hour.
  2. We also acted as a direct action support team, providing real time information about what the target was doing inside the premises, location of sensitive computers, disabling alarms and other security features in real time, etc.

All that information was carefully analyzed and compared with the intel gathered by the unit’s own intel guys and was found either at the same level or, in most cases, more accurate.

Despite our criticism of "cyber war", computer network operations, and more broadly information-based operations, are already an important facet of conflict. And as tactics grow even more dependent on information systems, the ability to attack, degrade, disrupt, influence, and gain unauthorized access to information systems will have an even greater tactical impact. What's important to note is that this impact will not be independent, as cyberspace does not exist independently. Ghost in the Shell provides a more likely prediction of cyber's increased role in conflict, with information stolen from adversary networks a key part of tactical as well as strategic planning and hackers supporting operations like artillery, ready to disrupt the enemy in the heat of an engagement.

In short, while the world obsesses over "cyber-doom" scenarios for strategic cyberwar, cyber capabilities are trickling down to the tactical and operational levels where they will most likely be actually be employed. Maybe you won't see Advanced Persistent Threats shutting down nuclear power plants, but what if they launch an assault on military logistics to slow American response to an invasion? Maybe Anonymous won't kill the Internet, but are American forces prepared to operate in information-degraded environments on the battlefield after the enemy fuses EW and CNO on the tactical level? These are realistic problems rooted in existing and emerging capabilities. Cyber warfare is coming, but it may look as different from the popular perception as bombing in World War II did from H.G. Wells' dreams of aerial warfare.

  • About
  • Latest Posts

AdamElkus

Analyst at Crucial Point
Adam Elkus is a PhD student in Computational Social Science at George Mason University. He writes on national security, technology, and strategy at CTOvision.com forCrucial Point, War on the Rocks, and his own blog Rethinking Security. His work has been published in The Atlantic, Journal of Military Operations Foreign Policy, West Point Counterterrorism Center Sentinel, and other publications.

Latest posts by AdamElkus

  • MYCIN, Watson, and AI History - August 28, 2014
  • Computers and History: Beyond Science Fiction - August 26, 2014
  • Encyclopedia Dramatica And The Case Of The Satoshi Paradox - March 17, 2014

Share this:

  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Related

Filed Under: Cyber Security, Cyber War, SciFi Tagged With: DoD

Stay In The Loop: Sign Up To Receive Daily, Weekly or Monthly Newsletters Including The Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Weekly

About AdamElkus

Adam Elkus is a PhD student in Computational Social Science at George Mason University. He writes on national security, technology, and strategy at CTOvision.com forCrucial Point, War on the Rocks, and his own blog Rethinking Security. His work has been published in The Atlantic, Journal of Military Operations Foreign Policy, West Point Counterterrorism Center Sentinel, and other publications.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. electricfork says

    June 11, 2012 at 10:59

    @Aelkus @ctovision @alexolesker Your first cyberpunk article was spot on; looking forward to reading this one.

  2. electricfork says

    June 11, 2012 at 14:59

    @Aelkus @ctovision @alexolesker Your first cyberpunk article was spot on; looking forward to reading this one.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Cybersecurity Context

Craxel’s Digital Trust Platform, Data Security and Your Identity

Global Cyber Alliance Release: Perhaps the most important of the 2018 RSA Conference Season

Fingbox: Giving you something you need now more than ever, awareness and control over your home network

Secure Enclaves: Foundation For The Cloud-Based Enterprise

Cognilytica’s Weekly Newsletter on AI and Related Topics

Cyber War: The Fastest Way to Improve Cybersecurity?

The Cloud Security Alliance Hosts 5th Annual Federal Summit on 15 May 2018

Time for Transformational Cybersecurity Part II

Looking for Blockchain Innovation During RSA 2018

Steps to Take to Beat the Insider Threat in 2018

Six Methods to Create a Secure Password You’ll Actually Remember [INFOGRAPHIC]

Seasoned IT Professional and Security Rookie On Building Appropriate Influence

Maximize The Value Of Your 2018 RSA Show Visit

Now That You Are A Soldier In The Cyber War You Must Know Your Cognitive Biases

Main Street Cybersecurity: Can Email Be Safe?

InfoWarCon18 Is Coming! Nov 1-3 Leesburg VA

5 Examples of the Best Workplace Tech Available in 2018

Time for Transformational Cybersecurity!

More Thoughts from a Seasoned IT Professional and Security Rookie

DataTribe Launches Inaugural Cyber Funding Competition: The DataTribe Cyber Crucible (putting up $Millions in funding)

SciFi and other news from the future:

I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it.

Lessons of Science Fiction Computer Interfaces

Electric Dreams: Amazon Turns Philip K. Dick Short Stories Into 10 Standalone Movies

Altered Carbon: SciFi Action Exploring Concepts Of Bio-Sciences and The Ultimate In Personal IT

Stream New Science Fiction Web Series “ExHumans” on Amazon

The American Way of War Is Based On Tech: Don’t Let It Be Our Downfall!

Time For A Fourth Law of Robotics

Black Mirror Transcends Fiction Into Reality

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: Great Science Fiction Full of Thought Provoking Visions Of Our Near Future

Computers and History: Beyond Science Fiction

Assumption of Breach and Defense Planning

How Cyberpunk Killed Cybersecurity

Innovation and Robotics: The Uncanny Valley of Death

Want a new information superiority idea? Read an old book

The Future of Global IT: Its like the Kobayashi Maru

Vint Cerf of Google and Bob Gourley of CTOvision.com on CIO Talk Radio

CyberWar And You:

Russian State-Sponsored Cyber Actors Targeting Network Infrastructure Devices

In Defense Of 3% Of Google’s Employees And Their (And Everyone’s) Right To Have Opinions

Energy Pipeline Operations Affected By Cyberattack

White House Takes Action Against Chinese Intellectual Property Theft

The Ethics Of AI and Big Data: Facebook and Cambridge Analytica Are Writing New Case Studies For Us All

Internet-connected Product Bans: How Do You Avoid Future Issues?

3 Software Programs That Let Businesses Monitor Employees’ Computers

The Cyber Threat Provides New Insights Into Bad Actors: Book updated with latest on threat actors and the tech ecosystem

How Taking the Time to Verify Your Network Could Save You Millions

Thoughts from a seasoned IT professional and security rookie

2018 Goal: Re-position Cybersecurity As An Enabler

Connected Vehicles and Cybersecurity: An SAE produced webinar

FBI Deputy Director On Russian Election Influence Ops: “We should have seen this coming”

SINET 16 Innovator Winners: Every year this list highlights firms every enterprise tech professional should track

A Fierce Domain: Conflict in Cyberspace

Four Common Password Practices You Might Want To Reconsider

 FBI vs Apple: Informed Dialog on Privacy vs Security Is Key

How to Keep Your Company’s Information Organized

FBI vs Apple: Lessons From History and The Law on Protecting Privacy Rights

Are you ready for state-sponsored zombie malware attacks?

What You Get With CTOvision Pro

Joining CTOvision Pro provides you with unlimited access to our in depth market research, technology trends analysis, company reviews and special reports.

  • If you are from the technology community you will gain insights into your market and enterprise mission needs.
  • Enterprise architects, program managers and acquisition professionals gain insights into the rapidly shifting technology landscape.

Try CTOvision Pro today!

Connect with:

Membership Login



signup now | forgot password?

Crucial Point LLC technology due diligence

Disruptive IT finder

CTOevents

CTOvision Mobile

CTOvision Newsletterss

Hottest Content of Last Two Days

  • Quantum Computing: The Potential Cure For Cancer?
    Quantum Computing: The Potential Cure For Cancer?
  • The Global Ungoverned Area
    The Global Ungoverned Area
  • Fingbox: Giving you something you need now more than ever, awareness and control over your home network
    Fingbox: Giving you something you need now more than ever, awareness and control over your home network
  • Cyber War: The Fastest Way to Improve Cybersecurity?
    Cyber War: The Fastest Way to Improve Cybersecurity?
  • Global Cyber Alliance Release: Perhaps the most important of the 2018 RSA Conference Season
    Global Cyber Alliance Release: Perhaps the most important of the 2018 RSA Conference Season
  • Robots Keep Evolving: New Capabilities of Boston Dynamics Robotic Dog Are Amazing
    Robots Keep Evolving: New Capabilities of Boston Dynamics Robotic Dog Are Amazing
  • The Internet of Things: Explained
    The Internet of Things: Explained

Footer

Free Newsletters and Tech Reports
CTOVision Pro: Exclusive Content

CTOs on Facebook
CTOs on LinkedIn

CTO Events
CTOvision Mobile App

Copyright © 2018 CTOvision.com ·