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Tag: USA

  • The American Wolf Warriors

    During the reign of Xi Jinping Chinese diplomacy, the dominant approach to other countries, with the exception of Russia, has been to call forth the Wolf Warriors. In just a matter of a few years, China went from a rather respected cooperative partner in countries like Sweden, for instance in creating Confucius Institutes and exchange programmes in the Academy, to being an enemy. Not an opponent or adversary, but a foe.

    As in France, the Chinese ambassador to Sweden, was seen as rude and unreasonable. Calls for his expulsion came from the right, the center and the left. In the Czech Republic, Chinese merchants were exposed exporting face masks and other medical equipment during the early phases of Covid pandemic, to selling (or was it donating?) them to the Czech Republic, calling it aid.

    In Southeast Asia, China has turned all other states into enemies, with their frequent harassment of fishers, border patrols and building military bases on reefs near or in other states. States turned to the United States of America to shield them. President Joe Biden iterated and reiterated his military protection of Taiwan. He talked to, and with, other states, let them front important political decisions.

    But now, the Trump administration has become the new Wolf Warriors, demeaning, slandering and threatening states: Ukraine, Russia, Denmark, Germany, Panama, Palestine. And the European Union. Trump and his lackey Ass Vance seem not to have learned anything from the Chinese way of diplomacy: you gain virtually no friends or allies. States shun you and realise they must cooperate more without you. How can you expect to gain friends by bullying, threatening and belittling people? Even the Russian regime understands this.

  • Harvesting US agencies for Grok?

    Few have escaped the unconstitutional encroachments of Elon Musk(olini) (professional manchild) into US agencies, with his team of followers (at least 37 people, because the portrayal of the single, man “genius” simply doesn’t exist – they always rely on lots of followers and fixers).

    Ostensibly they’re distmantling agencies (USAID was instituted by the Republican party in the 1990’s by the way) and “saving expenditures” for the sake of saving money and perhaps decreasing the US debt. Personally, I believe the real purpose is, primarily, to harvest as much data on the population as possible, to provide all of it to Muskolinis Grok AI. The scaling laws need more data, and why not harvest secret and non-official data? Without it, AI programs can neither proceed nor progress, and now Grok has an advantage. Whoever wins this war of artificial intelligence wins all of it (it is presumed) and can control the population with extremely sensitive data on virtually every American.

    Secondly, Grok will have the capacity to surveil and weed out uncomfortable and inconvenient employees in the federal bureaucracy. If necessary, they’ll fire more people and bring in loyalists and sycophants to fill the vacant places.

    As Ezra Klein put it: “Congress is a place where you can lose. […] Trump is acting like a king, because he’s too weak to govern like a president.” So, expect no resistance from the weak Republicans in Congress. And this is what happens to democracy and bureaucracy when “entrepreneurs” think they can play government.

    From now on, I’ll follow the Canadian motto “Buy Canadian”, though in the way of “Do not buy American whenever you can avoid it.”

  • Restricted aid to Ukraine

    Restricted aid to Ukraine

    I planned to write this text regarding USA, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Iran, North Korea, China and Trump a month ago, but didn’t have the time.

    Between the US presidential election and the inauguration of Donald Trump, many pundits and military analysts had hopeful discussions on how Trump could help Ukraine more than the Biden administration. I really couldn’t see this. I know the Biden administration has done wonder for Ukraine, and faltered, stammered and didn’t do enough for Ukraine “to win” (whatever that actually means). One of the main reasons, from my perspective, is ammunition constraints.

    Israel attacked Gaza and was on the verge of attacking Libanon and Iran after the 7th of October 2023. The Biden administration did all they could to restrain the Israeli government from a regional war. Simultaneously Biden warned China that the US would fight a war for Taiwan, with an ever-present Chinese military in the Taiwan Straight, while North Korea and Iran helped Russia against Ukraine.

    I believe Biden was afraid of regional wars in Europa, the Middle East and Asia, first and foremost because wars are bad. He had realized how bad they were before becoming president and was, thus, cautious. Secondly, the US can’t support its own military against China, Israel against Iran and its allies, and Ukraine against Russia. It simply doesn’t have the ammunition to do so. The war between Russia and Ukraine proved to the Americans how quickly ammunition is depleted. Javelins and Stingers were used in numbers they US couldn’t rebuild in many years, and that was a “small” war. Fighting one to three regional wars at the same time would have forced the US to choose which war to actually fight.

    There might’ve been several, to me unbeknownst, reasons for the Biden administration to restrain its support of Ukraine, but this is the most obvious one I can think of.

    Regarding Trump I didn’t for a second believe he was going to support Ukraine as much as Biden. The man has no comprehension of geopolitics whatsoever. He doesn’t understand politics, political power and power relations at all. He believes strong men should haggle, not negotiate. Biden stood back and let allies and his own secretaries and directors take place during his years as president. Trump has yes-sayers shouting and haggling as if they’re on some sort of parody of a Medieval market.

    Trump will pivot in any way he sees fit, because he can’t focus on any issue too long. One minute he’ll affront Russia, the next the European Union, and after that Ukraine. He’ll treat Ukraine like some American granary, attempting to haggle, while not understanding what haggling territory means for Ukraine and Russia.

    He has already ruined relations in the Middle East with the preposterous idea on Gaza, his relations with Canada and Mexico. Now he’ll ruin the relations ever further with the EU (he doesn’t understand how the EU works, therefore despising it) as well as with Ukraine. The result might be what Emanuel Macron has wanted for eight years: a stronger Europe (and a weaker US). At the same time, Russia and China will grow stronger, as will India and Brazil. Meanwhile, the Trump administration will continue to erode its power and power relations globally.

  • Book review: Fancy Bear Goes Phishing

    Book review: Fancy Bear Goes Phishing

    As soon as I noticed a book published with this savvy title (and cover, created by Rodrigo Corral) this year, I knew I had to read it: Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in five Extraordinary Hacks. Authored by Scott J. Shapiro, professor of law and philosophy at Yale Law School. In his youth, Shapiro spent much time with computers, but later chose a career in philosophy and law. When writing about cyberwar, he returned to computers, re-learning programming, computer science and the lingo: Evil maid attack, bald butler attack, bluesnarfing, phishing, spear phishing, whaling…

    Attempting to answer the simple questions of why the Internet is insecure, how do hackers exploit insecurity and how they can be prevented, or at least decreased in numbers, Shapiro takes us on a journey with five stops, from the late 1980’s to the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the Minecraft wars 30 years later.

    One of Shapiro’s main arguments is the distinguishment between upcode and downcode. Upcode is the human aspect of cybersecurity, such as regulation, law, and organizational norms, whereas downcode is the technical programming and operating of programs, operative systems and alike. His consistent argument is that upcode regulates downcode. Thus, he opposes solutionism, the view that “technology can and will solve our social problems”. I’ve written about the tech elite earlier in 2023, their engineering-like focus on all issues, they being able to solve everything with math and algorithms, as if reality can be reduced to technicalities. Shapiro continues, with his fantastic sense of humour: “Great news! We can reverse centuries of imperialism, revolution, and poverty with our cell phones.” This connects to Bruce Schneier’s angle on cybersecurity too: focus on the humans primarily.

    Another sentence deeply related to Cathy O’Neil is “Most problems do not have solutions that are reducible to finite procedures.” Solutionism cannot succeed, because it relies on (Alan) Turing’s physicality principle: changes in the digital realm presupposes changes in the physical realm, which means computation, when all is said and done, is a physical process, and relies on control over the physical world, such as cables, servers, and routers.

    The almost inherent insecurity of the Internet of Things (IoT) is quite obvious, another connection to Schneier, who claims the same thing. IoT-devices have very rudimentary operating systems, meaning they’re usually really poorly designed. They have a singular, or few, purposes, rendering them with attack vectors. So, your refrigator might be part of a zombie-net controlled by some angry teenager playing Minecraft, using your very refrigator attacking another server running Minecraft.

    Solutionism dominates so much, represented by ignoration and non-comprehension among programmers and computer scientists, disguised as the common resentment and claims that politics is unfit to kepp up with things technical. The sentiment of solutionism Shapiro compresses in one sentence:

    “Politics becomes engineering; moral reasoning becomes software development.”

    Cybersecurity – it’s a human thing

    Shapiro connects law and legal discussions in the cases the tells. What are the implications judiciously for the hackers, how does the hackers think, and the legal system perceive these acts. In cases where the perpetrator is sentenced, how does the legal system reason?

    I appreciate how he considers gaming and programming culture as overtly (white) male, rendering women targets usually for misogynic hatred, or at least suspicious activites by men against women (and other gender identities, might I add). This touched briefly on the deeply ingrained meritocratic aspects of programming/hacking culture, as covered by Gabriella Coleman in Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking.

    Shapiro also provides us with the combination of basic computers science terms and programming functions, such as the difference between data and code, and how operating systems work. If you don’t understand how very rudimentary programming functions, Shapiro will inform you how it actually works to prove his points, and easen the complexities of cyberspace somewhat. Knowledge will calm you more than ignorance, he reasons, and I concur.

    Mainly he presents various ways hackers exploit humans via their cognition: visuality, irrationality, probability, and time. Hackers are great cognitions and really social beings, at least virtually, and comprehend how some people will be fooled.

    The sense of humour!

    Regarding the oh, so common Nigerian prince/general/rich person mail, Shapiro regularly depicts issues and technicalities through diagrams or pictures, and provides proper examples the reader can understand, such as:

    “This Nigerian Astronaut pushes this internet scam to eleven.”

    Anyone who comprehends this sentence, will enjoy reading a serious book on a serious subject.

    It goes up to eleven

    Of all the books on technology I’ve read, this is the best one. Were I to give people a recommendation on one single book they could read to better grasp the cyber realm, Fancy Bear Goes Phishing it is.

  • Democracies in time

    Democracies in time

    The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (abbreviated SVR) seems busy spreading a narrative of Russian invincibility and inevitable Ukrainian defeat. Recently it was visible in one of Sweden’s largest newspapers, where American “experts” asserted Ukraine needs to negotiate immediately. In August CNN claimed The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (abbreviated FSB) was attempting influencing Westerners “through layers of ostensibly independent actors.” A known Swedish blogger accused Svenska Dagbladet for actively spreading this narrative by interviewing an “independent” American “expert”. Anders Åslund disproves the obvious faulty arguments put forward by these kinds of “experts”. Josh Rogin from the Washington Post also wrote a good opinion piece on this very issue. Finish authorities have revealed that Russian intelligence services have been active in foiling Sweden joining NATO. Who could’ve thought?

    In an interview with The Kyiv Independent, Serhii Plokhy argues that we need to brace and prepare for a long war. The coming year might be pivotal and he argues, correctly I think, that short-term memory is dangerous, tending to dominate among political elites. Personally I believe regular people oftentimes see life through a short-term memeory version too. The latest inflation rate or cost of cucumber in the store seems more damaging to the world, and the self, than a long, brutal war.

    Francis Farrelly of the same newspaper wrote an op-ed on the possibility of Ukrainian defeat. It is, to say the least, very critical of the West, and its willingness to really support Ukraine in terms of weapons, ammunition and weapon systems. Overall, I agree, although I think the Biden administration has done a marvelous job all-in-all and definitely compared to if Trump had been president, and compared to the European Union. Without the Biden administration, for all its’ faults, Ukraine would’ve fought a partisan war. The countries supporting Ukraine have the most resources on the planet. Russia has survived this far into the war because of the Soviet stockpiles, because economically, and we hear lots about how Russia has withstood economic pressure better then expected and how much stronger Russia is compared to Ukraine (from certain Western “experts” for instance), Russia has a GDP in comparison to New York state or Canada. So, approximately 150 million Russians produce as much as 20 million New Yorkers or 37 million Canadians. What do we have to fear?

    It makes me wonder if the authoritarians have a better perspective on time than democrats and inhabitants in democratic societies? Of course Putler embarrassed himself so much he couldn’t even show up riding that three-wheeled motorbike (he can’t ride an ordinary motorbike) when he realized his troops were initially pulverized by the Ukrainians. But he also knows how to gamble in the casino of International Politics and Suchlike Affairs. So, he and his men tried all they could to prolong the war in order to outweigh the losses and eventually defeat the West by beating Ukraine on the battlefield or by waiting for the short-term-memory-people in the West to think, and shrug as if it didn’t matter: “nah, not worth it anymore”.

    Johann Hari, among others, has written about our Stolen Focus, our inability to think properly because our attention span is so splintered and the gratification system is constantly set to “On”. For instance, the Swedish economy isn’t feeling too well, but the smallest evidence of a turn, like lessened increase of inflation, means that things are already turning. But an economic crisis isn’t averted by one small improvement, since the crisis itself is built up during decades. If Ukraine can’t “win” on the battlefield once, everything’s lost and we’re prepared to back our bags and go home.

    If democracies and their inhabitants can’t see over the next hill, democracy as a concept is dead. The war between Ukraine and Russia is costly in many ways – that’s war. After all the promises of support for Ukraine, all the “Slava Ukraini” uttered by prime ministers and presidents, we simply can’t surrender for an enemy which seems stronger than initially thought or because a war continues longer than people anticipated. Why wouldn’t it last for years? Swift victories seem fictitious or cineastic. Victories require time, willingess, sacrifice, logistics, money and people.

    Franz-Stefan Gady wrote about the movie Napoleon in Foreign Policy. Firstly, he mentioned the Western thought of “one major, decisive battle” which will lead to absolute and definite victory. Secondly, he writes (and has written before) about teh belief in a game-changing weapon, or a weapon system so strong it’ll lead to victory. None of these two things exist. Nuclear weapons, you say? Yes, they have delayed Western support for Ukraine, but have definitely not lead to some magical victory for the Russian forces.

    An ex-commander in the US military claimed that the People’s Liberation Army (the military of the Chinese Communist Party, not the military of the state) is preparing to invade Taiwan in 2027 at the latest. Even if this is his words, the Chinese and American leaderships are well aware of the risk of war over Taiwan, attempting to defuse the tension. It might not, hopefully, come to pass, although it’s a reminder of the tangible risk of a confrontation between two superpowers, one democratic, one authoritarian, both wanting to shape the world.

    According to a report from a German think-thank, Russia could rather quickly rearm and reconstitute in order to continue aggressions. The current Russian leadership, and many rightwing extremists perceives several states (like the three Baltic states) surrounding Russia as rightfully belonging to the Russian Federation, as former parts of the Russian Empire. The claim of renewed/expanded aggression has been made by the Swedish military and military analysts since the fullscale war on Ukraine.

    Russia has also transformed itself, again, into a full-fledged dictatorship, bent on territorial and influential expansion. Belarus is already virtually annexed. Russia won’t bend because Ukraine negotiates. They won’t bend because NATO or the EU withdraws or abandons Ukraine.

    We can’t be as naïve as Neville Chamberlain and his cohorts and accept dictators and authoritarian states to remain calm and peaceful. Unfortunately, Theodore Roosevelt was right when he wrote you should speak softly and carry a big stick, and that a good navy (here military) is not a provocation to war, it is the surest guaranty of peace. Russia must loose on the battlefield. No one should even consided abandoning Ukraine. You stand by your promise, by your friends.

  • Book review: Weapons of math destruction

    Book review: Weapons of math destruction

    This is a mandatory book during a course on democracy, that I actually read approximately three years ago and thus never reviewed (this website didn’t exist then), so I thought it was time for a proper review.

    Cathy O’Neil is a computer scientist and mathematician, who left the academic life for the financial industry in the early 2000’s, working with computers, for companies making lots of money. There she discovered what is now called Big Data and later became troubled by the purposes and intents of algorithms. After realising the even more troublesome side effects on society, she thus wrote this book, with the secondary title How Big Data increases inequality and threatens democracy.

    Through ten chapters, O’Neil takes the reader through what a data model is and how it can affect people in real life, such as the effects of university ranking models and the possibility of getting an adequate education, evaluations of teachers, online advertising, criminal injustice and justice and getting insurance, among other things. How come a data model deems a teacher unsuccesful or a job applicant unfit? Is the model correctly constructed or does it inherit its lack of perspective, and mathematical incoherence, from the creator? Data models with destructive effects on people’s lives are what she calls weapons of math destruction, WMD.

    In large, I agree with her and appreciate her arguments and conclusions. Negative feedback loops can infer that black men are more prone to commit crimes because the police has indicated black neighbourhoods as more exposed to petty crimes, sending police patrols to these neighbourhoods rather than white communities with more hidden crimes not marked on a map. This kind of feedback loop creates or maintains inequalities, which have destructive consequences for society.

    Sometimes, though, she contradicts herself. The extremes in statistical data are more likely to be pointed out and punished, she writes, although she also writes (rightly) that black men become an average in criminal statistics, simply being the median and mean, rather than the extreme. In a black community with more black men than white men, black men are the average. In a sense, being an average person, financially for instance, in a big data model can be very punishing, while being an extreme in form of extremely rich is better.

    On average (huh!) though, this book is still highly relevant, even though we’ve moved into the “age of AI”. AI-programmes rely on the same errors and statistical inferences as the programmes O’Neil discusses. Personally, I think the book is good for social scientists. She presents statistical models used by scientists and businesses, and how easily they can turn into stupid models discriminating people. It’s nice to get a mathematicians perspective and logical thinking.

    Conclusion: It still stands. Brief as that.

  • Book review: Chip war

    Book review: Chip war

    Once every couple of years (or months) you come across a topic you’ve never really been interested in, or perhaps haven’t even heard of. Or it’s a topic in the back of your head, that you’ve never been able to verbalize properly before. Suddenly it falls within scope and it is the only thing your mind is focused on for some time. After listening to The Ezra Klein Show with Chris Miller about his book Chip war, this has been the case for me. (Dmitri Alperovitch also talks to Miller on the Geopolitics Decanted podcast.)

    Semiconductors, you ask? Vaguely, you’ve heard of compontents crucial to technological infrastructure. Or phones, perhaps? You are right. Semiconductors are omnipresent in a technological society: phones, cars, computers, tablets, certain bins (!), satellites, dishwashers, speakers, washing machines, code locks, medical equipment – you name it. Since the 1950’s they’ve taken over society as a whole and most countries wouldn’t function properly without them. Semiconductors are in many ways the equivalent to oil – without it, no society. Chris Miller tells the story of how semiconductors were created, why they were created, and how they are used.

    Really, this is one of the best history books I ever read. And it’s not only about history, it’s not like your usual history book (I love history books)! It contains quite technical details of how semiconductors are constructed, and although it’s far from detailed (because it cannot be), it’s so intruiging and exciting I don’t want to lay down this book. I want it to continue endlessly. There are many aspects of the tech industry and the technological world I simply wish could disappear, so many dismal, awful and depressing aspects that haunt us and seem to increase each year. Read Ron Deibert’s Reset to get the state of the world. Generally, I have no high hopes for the future. In ways I do not really comprehend though, this books inspires hope. Perhaps it’s the implications of this specific piece of equipment, or the creation of the technology, or the suitable use and functions that allure to me.

    I cannot stop being impressed, even though I’m aware of the environmental and climate implications, of machines, that produce photolitography, comprised of almost 460.000 components, taking almost 20 years to develop, shooting objects through vacuum approximately 50.000 times each second. How can I not be impressed by the sheer (awesome) ingenuity to create a software program keeping track of every single component in one of the these machines, for it not to stall production? How do you track that many components? Of course I cannot be so impressed I lack the ability to review, but the storytelling and the technical details are impressive.

    History of semiconductors and Moore’s law

    The semiconductor itself stems from the US. Then it, generally, moved eastwards (BTW, a very cute game) to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, the two latter the present superpowers in advanced semiconductors. See, there’s a difference between semiconductors and advanced semiconductors. The latter being inserted into machines general, while the later is used in more advanced machines or weapons.

    Most likely, you’ve heard of Moore´s law, based on the probablistic relationship between scientific progress and production, uttered by Gordon Moore (BTW, he died in March this year). Ostentatious is the scentific progress, but Miller stresses the workers efforts and import in doubling the number of transistors on a “chip” every two years. Without many dextrious, low wage women this “law” would never have occured.

    The anticipated fight between the superpowers: China vs US

    A portion of the book is dedicated to the conflict between China and the US, after the subsiding conflict between Japan and US in the (primarily) 1980’s and 1990’s. On the one hand, it’s fascinating, on the other, it’s completely terrifying. The conflicting sides compete for semiconductors, advanced semiconductors even more so, to fill their societies with computers, phones, gadgets and all the other things, but also competing for the military edge. Advanced weapons, semi-autonomous among them, are really scary, from your worst nightmare, and they’re becoming reality (I truly hope Eric Schmidt and Bob Work are right in that autonomous weapons are forbidden in every way and semi-autonomous weapons are subordinated humans).

    I’m happy to read that the swing in the US policy towards China changed parts due to Matt Pottinger. It confirms the view I hold of him being a good, knowledgable deputy national advisor. Generally I hold the view that the Trump administration was a disaster for the US (although several politically handpicked staff were talented and good), but this man was fantastic at his job. He lasted approximately 47 Scaramuccis.

    Very few companies are actually creating semiconductors, especially the advanced ones (TSMC, Samsung, UMC and GlobalFoundries), and only one create the blueprints, so to speak: ASML. This business is extremely concentrated. Drilling after oil can be done pretty much without advanced equipment, rudimentarily, but creating 14,8 billion transistors on one single chip is almost beyond conception of the mind and takes decades and billions of dollars in investment to complete, not to mention very skilled workers.

    Taiwan, together with South Korea and Japan, is at the very centre of this looming conflict. Without Taiwan, approximately 37 % of the advanced chips vanish and it would be disastrous to most of the industrial world, since these chips are part of industrial processes, military equipment (without them, no guidance), servers, and an abundance of other things.

    In Taiwan, some people argue they have a “silicon shield” protecting them from Chinese invasion. Why would China want to trigger a conflict, quickly sinking the world economy and advanced societies into a nightmare. Miller, however, argues that this shield is far from a guarantee, and I couldn’t agree more. Taiwan is perceived a province of China and too bold moves from the Taiwanese leadership and China will attack. Unfortunately, the situation is that simple.

    Superfluous summary

    Well. What can I say? This book is a must-read. If you wish to know more about semiconductors or the state of the world regarding semiconductors – read!

    Unfortunately, the book was issued when the CHIPS and Science Act was enacted and new export control measures on semiconductors were implemented, omitting these two very important steps in the conflict between China and the US. If you’re interested, listen to Alperovitch’s discussion with Miller in the aforementioned podcast.

    The single best aspect, an underestimated one, of this book’s layout is the short chapters. I cannot stress enough how much I appreciate chapters of approximately 10-15 pages each. For me, reading a book with hundreds of pages belonging to one single chapter isn’t a problem, but I find this layout so much easier, so much more appealing, to digest.

  • Book review: How to lose the information war

    Book review: How to lose the information war

    I first noticed Nina Jankowicz while reading the report Malign Creativity: How Gender, Sex, and Lies are Weaponized against Women Online. However, I didn’t know Nina was specialized in Central and Eastern Europe, that she has been stationed in Ukraina and knows Russian (thus also being able to understand Polish, Czech and Slovak). Her second book is focused on that same geographical region and, as the title implies, information warfare, directed by Russia. But she weaves the information war of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Poland and Ukraine with that of the US, and concentrates on the way to loose information war, but also how to try and tackle it.

    “With the advent of the internet and social media, individual citizens are now ‘news’ outlets themselves.” This fact countries like Russia uses against democracies in order to spread false narratives. In the introduction Nina gives us a more thorough dive into The Mueller Report about Russia’s interference prior under during to the presidental election of 2016. It was far more insidious and elaborate than arranging one protest and counterprotest at the same time and location. The Internet Research Agency (IRA) managed to run popular Facebook pages like Blacktivist and Being Patriot, as well as arrange unseemlingly fun and popular protests in Washington D.C.

    Nina takes us to five countries that in different ways have tried, and are trying, to fight against Russian information warfare: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Poland and Ukraine. In discussions with government officials, politicians and alternative media, she paints a picture of the different ways these countries try to combat Russian interference and pressure. These could provie the US with lessons on how to lose the information war.

    The lesson of lessons

    When it’s in front of you, it’s completely obvious. You ask yourself why you never saw it or verbally was able to say it out loud. Nina does just this. In the chapter of Estonia, she delves into the issue of the Russian minority, how it’s discriminated against and can’t be part of the Estonian society. This Russia uses to its advantage, to cast doubt on the Estonian government and majority. How to solve?

    Whenever we discuss issues related to technology, we tend to see technical solutions. Probably because the tech industry wants it no other way. Probably because we are entranced by technology, living in a technoreligious society, believing in technology as a good force in itself. So, why not simply throw in a tech solution to a tech problem? Like she writes: “How can any administration that intends to protect free speech censor the authentic opinions of its own citizens?”

    Why not solve this societal issue with a societal solution instead? Simply put: restore trust in government, give the minority chances to become part of the society as a whole. Try not to evoke bad feelings and animosity between people, heal the rifts. Two important pillars of media literacy (that Taiwan has tried) are schools, as in Finland, and public libraries and the powerful information and searchability librarians hold to guide citizens in the endless stream of information and literature. Thus Russia can no longer use this issue to splinter relations between people and create even bigger rifts. Because one thing Russia does is never to invent new issues, but use the old societal problems to sow discord and splinter society and the nation.

    Downsides

    Four downsides with the book:

    It was published just after Joe Biden was installed as president of the Unites States, thus missing the Biden administration’s take on cyber warfare, dual-use technologies, spyware and transnational repression. It differs from previous administrations.

    It was published one year before the Russian war against Ukraina in 2022, which renders some of the politics described obsolete. For instance, Estonia has once more turned more suspicious of the Russian minority, meaning that, for instance, the chapter on Estonia is not up to date, although it’s still relevant as a historical lesson. Settings for information warfare have changed rather drastically in one year.

    Somehow, I really dislike fictional writings “capturing” a technology and its implication in the present or future. Carissa Véliz does it in Privacy is power. Nina does it, and it’s erroneous, partly because it’s written before Biden’s presidency, partly because it’s the usual bleak, dry, predictable onset to an issue now, set in 2028.

    In the chapter about Ukrainian efforts to provide positive aspects of Ukraine in the Dutch election about EU-legislation should have been problematized more. Even though the Russians seemed to have played a part in negative campaigning, the Ukrainian part could also be considered foreign interference in an election. Julia Slupska’s piece on election interference is well-worth a read.

    Summary

    The book is true to its’ title. Information warfare pervades the book, and it doesn’t confuse information warfare with espionage or cyber warfare. Terms here are very important and so are the differences between them. Although Russia is the focal point, which narrows the scope of information warfare, that’s an advantage here. To write about information warfare in general or include Chinese, Iranian, American or any other country, would water it down. One can’t cover everything to make a topic or an issue interesting.

    Lessons from the book are important and relevant. Countries must learn from one another, can’t hide from information warfare, and develop a battery of counter measures. And those counter measures are seldom technological, but rather societal, economical and political. That’s the most important things I learned reading this book.

  • Book review: Click here to kill everybody

    Book review: Click here to kill everybody

    For those who don’t know of Bruce Schneier, he’s one of the world’s most famous and prominent cybersecurity experts. If there’s one person you’d like to guide you and hold your hand while in need, Schneier is the one. This book is about basics of cybersecurity, not the technical aspects, but rather about security on the Internet and the Internet+, the interconnected world of the Internet of things.

    Driverless cars, thermostats, drones, locks on doors, baby dolls and monitors, and pacemakers are interconnected – without any concern for security. Virtually all companies except for Apple and Microsoft sell inadequate and incomplete consumer products without testing, whereas in the the airplane industry a line of code can cost millions of dollars and pass through very rigorous testing before being applied in reality.

    “Click here to kill everybody” is a thorough and deep book about how this neglect of cybersecurity has consequences for people, society, companies and governments/authorities. It depends on rushed incentives and meddling from many governments.

    I love the metaphor “The Four Horsemen of the Internet Apocalypse – terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles, and organized crime” that states and companies use to frighten people. If we standardize encryption in texting, telephone calls, files on your phone, the dark sides will become even stronger and the good forces will fail at catching and prosecuting villains (is the usual comments). The paradox is that states use front companies to do some of these works as well, like North Korea and organized crime and drugs. Even China (companies connected to the People’s Liberation Army), Russia (Internet Research Agency, under the now-well-known-name Yevgeny Prigozhin) and the US (the military-industrial complext and NSA-connected entrepreneurs) are all engaging companies to do their bidding, no strings attached.

    The situation we’re in: From bad to worse

    An entire chapter is named “Everyone favors insecurity”, a telling title. What it basically comes down to, is that companies are unwilling to pay for security, very much like ecofriendly products are more expensive, because taking ecological consideration into account costs more than not caring. Apple and Microsoft are two of the very few companies that actually pay attention to security, making sure that products are released when they’re as secure as possible. Most companies follow the former Facebook motto “Move fast and break things” and release rather delay and miss the launch.

    What people, and companies and authorities, then miss is the fact that our overall security is decreased, in peril, simply because it’s considered too expensive or too troublesome.

    Security should default, like encryption should be default, not optional or thought of in clear hindsight. When products are ready for sale, they should be as complete as possible. The ideal of move fast and break things should be abolished.

    Regulation

    Authorities need more transparency, less secrecy, more oversight and accountability, Schneier argues (and he isn’t alone). FBI, NSA and others don’t want encryption and want backdoors. This is completely contradictory security-wise. If the population is being preyed upon, if rogue elements can infect and steal from people, companies and authorities will also be easier targets. The more people who risk being infected and preyed upon, the more who will be in peril. Less security for civil society and people means states are less secure, although authorities want to weaken encryption, install backdoors – everyone gains access to damage, everyone looses.

    An argument often lost in the debate on regulation is that losing parties in this debate of regulation are small companies without assets or time on their side, and favour big corporations, who can much easier adapt. Big corporations are also prone to being in the attention span of the regulators and tended too, whereas smaller companies are seldom even seen, mostly overlooked. I think this is one of the most important aspects of the entire book.

    Another issue with regulation is its tendency to focus on particular technologies. Schneier’s suggestions is to “focus on human aspects of the law” instead of technologies, apps, or functions. Also, it’s better to aim for a result and let experts work to achieve that result rather than, again, focus on a specific technology.

    Summary

    Rights of the computers scientists / software developers / programmers are still very strong and they can develop pretty much what they want. We’re too short-sighted and can’t, or refuse to, see possible outcomes and changes from longer perspectives. “We accepted it because what they decided didn’t matter very much. Now it very much matters, and I think this privilege needs to end.” Just because products are digital doesn’t mean they have more right to exist, and living in a society where technology has become some kind of religious belief doesn’t mean technology is impervious to critic or bad things.

    Schneier argues that only states should have the capability to confront cyber attacks, not companies or other organizations. Considering they industry of spyware (or mercenary spyware as it’s called) I concur, though companies can help being part of cyber defense.

    One of Schneier’s guesses is that the security issues with “Internet+ will creep into their networks” in unexpected ways. Someone brings a device to work, which connects to the Internet and starts to leak data. Suddenly a company or authority realizes it has serious issues with real life implications.

    If you need a basic book about cybersecurity, without any technical details or prerequisites, this is a book for you. It’ll teach you what cybersecurity is about.

  • Two sides of Cambridge Analytica

    Two sides of Cambridge Analytica

    I reminisce sitting on the bus to Arlanda Airport, frantically reading interviews with someone named Christopher Wylie in The Guardian, the breaking news on every other news channel I could possibly find on the 18th of March 2018: Cambridge Analytica and it’s role in manipulating democratic elections.

    Mindf*ck by Christoper Wylie

    Chris Wylie is a self-taught computer guy with a nack for analyzing data, especially electoral data from Canada, England and the US. He worked for the Liberal democrats in Canada, moved to England and started working for the Liberal Democrats in England. Later he started working for a small data company named SCL Group, (Cambridge Analytica was part of the Strategic Communications Laboratories Incorporated, shortened SCL or later the SCL Group) and later Cambridge Analytica (shortened CA).

    CA worked with military clients and one direction was to influence the minds and behaviour of people, especially “the enemy”. Wylie introduces the reader to the history of psycological operations, psyops. For this they needed data and data to analyze, so they turned to social media, mainly. CA began operating for parties in elections in countries, often poor ones, with weak democratic institutions.

    Wylie tells the story of how Dr. Kogan came up with the app (This is your digital life) that harvested data points and personal data on approximately 87 million Facebook users (Kaiser also tells this); how he met Steve Bannon and how Cambridge Analytica came to be baptisted.

    One of my favourite parts, and the one I remember the most, is how he travelled for CA to interviews lots of people. Countless field studies became a backbone of the Trump campaign, alongside all the digital data points collected through (primarily) Facebook. I think this side, and importance, of the story is rather underappreciated, how people like Wylie sat with hundreds or thousands of people to interview them, to better understand why they voted for conservative ideas, how to trigger people online, how to microtarget individuals or small groups. Wylie and his colleagues understood that talking to real persons in real life is where you really, basically understand people.

    Crucial to the story is that Wylie quit CA in 2014, two years before the Brexit election and the American presidental election of 2016.

    Targeted by Brittany Kaiser

    Before buying Wylie’s book I noticed another person defected from Cambridge Analytica, or actually, the SCL: Britanny Kaiser, to most people an unheard of name. After some time I watched the documentary The Great Hack on Netflix and Britanny Kaiser stepped into my mind for the first time, outside the book reviews.

    She was devoted to human rights and tireless work for NGO’s internationally. She also worked for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. According to her, she needed money for the parents, and got hired by SCL. She became a travelling salesperson, working somewhat closely (yet loosely) to Alexander Nix, the head of both companies, for years. She was very much involved in American politics, first with the campaign of Ted Cruz and later with Donald Trump’s campaign.

    AggregateIQ (AIQ), also called SCL Canada, was one of the companies belonging to SCL Group (Wylie also writes about the company), who became involved in the Brexit election, doing business for leave campaigns, using lots of personal data on social media and involving money the campaigns were not supposed to have.

    The most fascinating thing and that really stuck with me is Siphon and the details Kaiser provides on microtargeting people. Siphon was a dashboard with which “the campaign could keep track of ad performance in real time”. The dashboard users could adjust campaigns after going into details about every single ad (and there were many thousands) they ran. Kaiser presents costs for presenting ads to Hispanics deemed persuadables with political interests in “jobs, taxes, and education” or white women in Georgia, deemed persuadables, with interests in “debt, wages, education, and taxes”. The entire US turned into a video game, states representing theatres to be won.

    All in all: Wylie vs Kaiser

    Both Wylie and Kaiser perceive Cambridge Analytica’s work as dangerous. They give plenty of examples of how CA tried to manipulate and influence voters and suppress people from voting. One issue is that they exagerate their own and CA’s clout. They definitely were meddling in the contested elections in the US and UK, but there are so many other actors involved, and Bannon or the Mercers are not flawless superminds who work in the shadows, able to influence and manipulate everyone. Things are usually always complex. I think the main reason the story of Cambridge Analytica became so big is that it showed how social media, personal data and the dirty tactics of today work.

    There are real differences between Wylie and Kaiser, some that I need to address.

    Wylie’s contempt for Alexander Nix is unmistakable, whereas Kaiser is more forgiving and can see beyond Nix’s influence and work, and see someone charming, someone human. Wylie really has/had some difficulties getting along with people and isn’t afraid of mentioning it.

    Where Kaiser is skeptical and suspicious of The Guardian’s reporting, and Carol Cadwallar in particular, about CA, Wylie is completely dependant on this newspaper and Cadwallar in particular.

    Mind also that Wylie claims Kaiser isn’t a whistleblower, just an opportunist saving herself before the boat sank. Kaiser, on the other hand, claims Wylie was a simple low-lever worker she never really heard of, who over-exaggerated himself and his importance, while actually leaving before of the crucial years of 2015-2017. One can see the similarity to Edward Snowden’s story, proclaiming he had more power and insight than he actually did, when Wylie fills his story with conversations with the important persons (Steve Bannon and Rebecca Mercer for instance), while Kaiser doesn’t seem to understand how important she actually was to CA. She was there with Ted Cruz and Kellyanne Conway during his campaign, she was present with Steve Bannon, Conway and Donald Trump on election night in 2016. She was part of the team.

    All in all, I think her book is slightly more sincere. She acknowledges faults and mistakes, blind spots, things she refused to see during the years of 2014-2017. She didn’t seem to ask the necessary questions, albeit, in her defense, she wasn’t immersed in the technical issues or the field research the way Wylie actually was. He admits the jolt of interest and excitement of interviewing a New Age woman who is into Donald Trump, sitting in her house asking questions. Meanwhile Kaiser is constantly on airplanes brokering deals. Should she had suspected something? Shouldn’t she? Should he? Shouldn’t he? Does anyone acknowledge one’s side as “evil”, “bad” or “wrong”? Most people on this planet presume their on the right side, the good side. If I tell you your boss might be using surveillance programs on your work computer, should you examine if I’m right or do you presume I’m wrong? Are you too lazy to check, do you think me a liar, a conspirator for asserting such a thing, are you more comfortable remaining in the unknown unknown?

    Kaiser and Wylie were both useful fools, running fool’s errands for years, for rich people who understood how social media, media, elections (for instance, how few votes in specific districts are needed to winan election there) and people work. People, like Bannon, John Bolton, and the Mercers, pull strings in order to turn politics in their direction. They use a variety of companies to gather personal data, to sway people’s minds, to insert news into social media and media, to manipulate tiny details in order to turn the whole into something different. Insidious and genious.

    Still, after all, how many people actually question their jobs, their vocations, their circumstances as they happen, and not simply in hindsight? These two persons did question jobs before Cambridge Analytica really came into the headlights, even if their views and opinions differ. Their stories are well-worth reading, particularly because they differ.