Weaponization of Social Technology

    We live in an age where technological advancement may not be shaped by financial gain, but by what political or military power it grants. A few weeks ago we discussed how many companies tried to shape emerging standards to favor their company financially. In modern times, governments try to shape emerging technologies to gain additional power over their populations. A recent wired.com article titled "Our Government has Weaponized the Internet. Here's How They Did It," discusses how many modern technologies could be (or are being) used by their controllers to hold political power.

    The article describes numerous tactics and exploits developed by NSA, detailed in various leaks, and the ways that these exploits can be used to violate the privacy of individuals or groups. The real value of the article is not specifically about the NSA, however.

    The larger point of the article is that the 'internet backbone', the infrastructure of the internet, was not developed to compromise the privacy or security of its users, but that in its current state, it is ripe for exploitation. The technologies developed to connect people, (the internet, social networks) ultimately will enable censorship and open vectors for cyber-attacks and terrorism.

    It goes on to state that if the US can justify targeting foreign corporations with digital espionage, foreign corporations can justify attacking our government or corporations. To quote the article,

    "We now live in a world where, if we are lucky, our attackers may be every country our traffic passes through except our own."

    What does this mean? It means that with every new technology developed, uses must be weighed against misuses. It would be difficult to fix problems with our current internet (universal encryption could help) but future problems could still be prevented. The term mutually-assured-destruction was originally used to describe a state of advanced nuclear armament, but I think it can now be used again to describe the damage that could be caused by cyber-attacks. During the Cold War, the military built more and more bombs, even though we already had enough to destroy the planet multiple times over. Now, we escalate in digital weaponry, creating new techniques to surveil or attack foreign nations.

    In recent news, James Cameron, UK Prime Minister, announced new laws making certain types of pornography illegal. As part of these laws, a system of internet censorship would be instated to enforce the ban. It is quite clear that the system, even if it is initially used to enforce this specific law, could be re-purposed for much more sinister censorship in future. This is just one example of this sort of cyber-escalation.