Cyber Scene #39 - The Future is Looking Up

Cyber Scene #39 -
The Future is Looking Up

Launching the Next Decade--Times Two

New York Times tech analyst Brian X. Chen leads off on 1 January in "The Tech that will Invade our Lives in 2020" with New Year projections of how "tech everywhere in life" is evolving quickly. He comments that many of the details of "high tech at our door" will be showcased at the CES 2020 consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas, ongoing as this Cyber Scene is published. The arrival of 5G, he posits, will be at the center of the near future--yes, the same hotly contested 5G that has a face that has launched a thousand digital ships (Trojan horses included??) with China. Mr. Chan goes on to point out that the steady rise of 5G has spawned a panoply of related devices, such as vehicle additions that allow two 5G-supplied drivers to signal lane changes or braking, contributing to the forward march of autonomous cars. Digital ear "fitbits," which are a step up from Siri-controlled earbuds, increase the sophistication of applied technology. And your home will become smarter as it becomes more digitally connected.

Across the pond, the London Times examines the intelligence "counterpoint" to the race pace of advancing technology in the ten years to come. The UK government is in the process of preparing to conduct its defense and security review pledged by newly-elected Boris Johnson to be the most profound review since the Cold War, per PM Johnson. Much of this is cyber-related, and has "sparked intense preliminary discussions in Whitehall departments, MI6, MI5, and GCHQ as they try to win resources and pitch desired modernisation reforms" to prepare it to defend against Russia's and China's quickly evolving technology-driven attacks. Likely to be included would be wider surveillance powers for the intelligence services, a broader remit for surveillance warrants, a move to take advantage of technological advances relating to data, and an upgrade to the security systems to make them more agile and effective. The British continue to be concerned about government vs. civil liberty surveillance issues and worry about Russian military intelligence operatives gaining a "first move" advantage regarding British intelligence officers.

The review will also include decisions regarding police and intelligence use of "equipment interference" (hacking of computers, phones, servers and networks) and more effort for analysis via artificial intelligence and algorithms of bulk data acquired by surveillance. The UK also plans to develop new models for government-tech industry partnerships. Last, but not least is the expansion of the UK's Defence Intelligence (DI) service which will "play a big role in the national cyberforce being set up to preside over offensive cyberactivity." According to the article, interagency disagreements are problematic, as the DI does not have the standing of the other more robust intelligence players. On a positive note, Dominic Cummings, the chief strategist for the Prime Minister, seeks to use the US DARPA's (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) as a model which would also benefit UK universities and research labs.

From Stars to Groundlings

"Beam Us Up!"

The future of cyber is literally not beyond, but above us, according to both the recent US decision to create and fund a Space Force, as well as the Economist's peek at the next decade. Although emissions from the White House have not yet done so in a detailed manner, Space Force proponent Admiral (ret) James Stavridis predicts that the nascent US Space Force will evolve into a Space and Cyber Force. Following his Bloomberg op-ed picked up by many mainstream dailies briefly mapping out the logic for a Space Force whose time has come, he then engaged in a follow-up military-focused 8 minute podcast (far more informative than tv sound bites) laying out the rationale, in a global context, for its creation. He then goes on to discuss the initial reconfiguring and centralization of space-related endeavors, ongoing and funded; the scaling and future growth of the Space Force; and its cyber connection. While his op-ed ends on a light note, embedding navy-speak into the Space Force initiative, the podcast is a wholly serious discussion of the blueprint for a Space Force capable of standing up to existing Russian and Chinese space forces and future bad actors.

The Economist's five-part Holiday Essay "Beware the Borg," which predates by a few days (published 18 December) Admiral Stavridis' Starship Enterprise op-ed, delves into space not so much as the next frontier, but one with historic ties back to the 1960's and Chile (!). Subtitled "A future of command economies and cybernetic dictatorship needs to be feared, but not expected," the essay fast-forwards, warp-speed, to cite Jack Ma, the recent CEO of China's Alibaba, who predicts: "Over the last 100 years, we have come to believe that the market economy is the best system, but in the next three decades, because of access to all kinds of data, we may be able to find the invisible hand of the market." One can extract from this that money as we know it, may not fuel the global economy--not even as a credit card, Paypal, Bitcoin or Libra. And then what does one do, the essay asks: help, anticipate, or disable the invisible hand? It then wonders that "if technology could outperform the invisible hand in the economy, might it be able to do the same at the ballot box?"

After discussing costs, the intoxication of technology, and other developments, the essay proclaims: "Let a thousand satellites bloom, a trillion sensors sense" which recalls our recent Space Force discussions. The conjoined nature of economies and high-tech hierarchies is discussed in the context of Soviet-styled planned economies, as in "The People's Republic of Walmart" a book published in 2008 looking at the history and possible future of planning. (N.B. China's White Paper plans to the year 2050.) In the fifth segment entitled "Welcome to Planet Platform," the essay posits that this future might lead to new ways of making decisions that will be entirely dependent on cyber.

Champagne taste but a taxed budget

As the satellite space expands above us, earthlings from liberal democracies throw down gloves over taxing tech. The 5 December Economist's "Bottle Shock" looks at the US and France sparring over corporate taxes on US-based FAANGs such as Google and Facebook whose tax rates across European countries "look suspiciously low." How low? The International Monetary Fund (IMF) assesses that the shortfall of taxes globally per year is, well, rounded off, $500 billion from "multinationals shifting profits to tax havens." France is adding a 3% tax, backdated to 1 January 2019, and the UK 2% while the US is retaliating with a threat of a 100% tax on French exports ranging from cheese to champagne. One might wonder whether Wensleydale and Pimm's may be next. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which includes these three and 33 other countries, has been working on a solution for nearly 6 years. China and other countries are working on a "unitary" approach lumping companies' worldwide operations together. Since there is no near-term solution, the Economist recommends that Americans keep their champagne on ice.

The Here and Now

As the uptick of space operations adds to the constellations above, here below the very near issue of protection against 2020 election tampering has upgraded US defenders to a war status.

A War by Other Means

The concern around Russian election interference, past and particularly future, has solidified into a new age of warfare--one emphasized by the Associated Press article on 26 December entitled "States are on the front lines" by Christina A. Cassidy. She reports on a US military presentation to 120 state and local election officials from 24 states gathered together in Washington D.C. under the rubric of a Harvard-affiliated democracy project. It emphasizes training for election security officials--increasingly worried--to be able to thwart interference. The article compares the past election security to a wedding planner who merely needs to see who shows up on election day and ensure that the wedding is properly stocked with equipment and supplies, as compared with the notion of the system itself being at risk. It is worth noting that this Defending Digital Democracy Project falls under the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School. Its programs and fellowships run the gamut from technology and policy on water to China's cyber capabilities.

On the governmental side, the Washington Post's intelligence correspondent Ellen Nakashima writes on 25 December of the US military's development of warfare tactics to avert Moscow-sourced interference by hacking 2020 election systems. US Cyber Command, now 10 years old, is at the vortex of this effort, according to the article. University of Texas, Austin, law professor Bobby Chesney notes that Russia has shown that integrating traditional information warfare with cyber-operations is now an inseparable practice, which Cybercom and the National Security Agency are trying to weave together in military operations as cyber-offensive capabilities. Ms. Nakashima goes on to say that while other military organizations such as the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) have combined these before, they have not done so with reference to election security. She also delineates several cyber operations that were used against attacks during the 2018 mid-term US elections--counterattacks which proved very successful. Interagency coordination for 2020 operations has also been worked out. Former Senior defense policy official Michael Carpenter points out, however, that cyber operations alone are most effective when also aligned with other tools and backed by allies.