Neil Kent - Cyber Security Meets National Security: International Perspectives on Digital Era Threats

Neil KentandIrina du Quenoy

Editors

St. James Studies in World Affairs

Academica PressWashington~London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kent, Neil (editor) | du Quenoy, Irina (editor)

Title: Cyber security meets national security : international perspectives on digital era threats | Neil Kent and Irina du Quenoy

Description: Washington : Academica Press, 2022. | Includes references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022947439 | ISBN 9781680537789 (hardcover) | 9781680537796 (e-book)

Copyright 2022 Neil Kent and Irina du Quenoy

1. Thomas Flichy de La Neuville
2. Antoine-Louis de Prmonville
3. Babayo Sule, Bakri Mat, Usman Sambo, Mohammed Kwarah Tal, Muhammad Aminu Yahaya

Thomas Flichy de La Neuville (Rennes School of Business)

It is clear that the digitalization the world, which interconnects people and equipment, represents a major civilizational transition. It is changing the ways in which power is exercised, partly concealing it from public view. Hackers operate anonymously, attacking websites that collect unwitting users information.

Indeed, one of the dilemmas faced by research into cybersecurity is that most data is not accessible to the wider public. This complex field of study can only be deciphered using the technical capabilities of the army or intelligence services. Still, it is possible to overcome this barrier by exploring the sources of information at either end of the chain. Upstream, a small number of philosophers are reflecting critically on the digital world. One example is Bernard Stiegler, who considers that the internet is a disruptive technology, in that digital automation leads to tax avoidance and unemployment. Downstream, various blogs and websites testify to the current vitality of technology. It is useful to cross-reference technology website Wired.com, which is written for a nonspecialist audience, with French websites InternetActu.net and Reflets.info, which offer a more critical reading of the subject.

Various online tools also enable us to assess the evolution of digital technology, from maps of the underwater cable network that carries 99 percent of internet data to maps of the users of TensorFlow or Shodan.io, which provides an overview of connected devices. To understand this, we have to examine the digital revolutions workings so that we can sketch out the potential geopolitical consequences.

Driven by an ambition to replace human unpredictability with artificial intelligence, the digital revolution uses captology to monopolize consumers attention and has remained largely untouched by cyber-dysfunctionalities.

In the years to come, the development of artificial intelligence will be flanked by the development of 5G and quantum computing. 5G is one hundred times faster than 4G and interconnects people with digital devices, providing the conditions for everything from smart cities to automated environments. 5G is designed for the Internet of Things, such as smart cars and drones, for example. Switzerland has taken an early lead in this area, launching 338 5G masts on April 17, 2019. This technology is not without its risks, however, as it must be relayed every 800 meters. The waves are very high in frequency and noncontinuous. The situation is further complicated by the fact that China has a number of 5G-related patents, with obvious geopolitical implications. In May 2019, US president Donald Trump banned American telecoms networks from buying Huawei equipment. Indeed, the United States has expressed fears about wide-scale espionage and has pressured its allies to freeze out the Chinese company. However, should Huawei and other Chinese businesses be prevented from rolling out 5G capabilities in Europe, the cost to European telecoms operators would be 55 billion and eighteen months of lost time.

On the quantum computing side, new quantum computers (and IBM Q in particular) are rendering current cryptographic protocols obsolete. While the ten or so quantum computers currently in existence are still in the experimental stage, in the next few years, the development of AI will primarily allow it to not only guide consumers choices but also to reform state bureaucracy. A new science captology has been developed to this end.

AI is first and foremost about emotions. Algorithms turn our mental space into code in an effort to capture our attention. The origins of captology reside in the work of Stanford Universitys B. J. Fogg, who published Persuasive Technology:Using Computers to Change What WeThink and Do in 2003. Persuasive technologies have been designed by choice architects to nudge peoples choices in a certain direction. Rooted in behavioral economics and neuro-marketing, they lend algorithms a governing power. This new economy considers our attention spans to be a rare and precious resource that can be used to a businesss advantage when it is focused on information that, in turn, provokes a particular action. Recognizing the potential negative effect of these techniques, Bernard Stiegler has criticized psychotechnology that short-circuits our attention spans, as had Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman before him when they denounced the medias role in manufacturing consent. Captology can also builds on artificially generated anxieties, such as the fear of missing out. This particular fear is largely fueled by certain aspects of modern technology, such as mobile phones and social networking sites, such as Facebook or Twitter, which enable users to constantly compare their profiles. As the worlds internet usage grows, a proportion of individuals will become psychologically dependent on being online and suffer from anxiety whenever they are not logged in.

Captologys potential for generating negative outcomes within the context of global digitalization is clearand yet in the imagination of the global citizenry and security services it is overshadowed by fear of cybercrime, which, however, tends to be overemphasized in the surrounding discourse.

Although cybercrime is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially in developing countries, groups of hackers rarely manage to paralyze organizations or states for long periods of time. As for subversion, while it is easy to start a protest movement online, it is very difficult to maintain in the long run. As a result, sabotage makes it temporarily trickier for the world to go digital, whereas espionage harvests the results of our constant connectivity. Ultimately, only noncommercial subversion is capable of endangering the current digital transition, but it is too infrequently executed to pose any serious kind of threat.

Having examined the digital revolutions workings, we can now sketch out the potential geopolitical consequences. Indeed, as can be seen from the preceding discussion, global digitalization is rooted in market dynamics and enables power to be exerted invisibly upon connected individuals. From a broader standpoint, it is aiding financial capitalism maneuver toward a new international geopolitical configuration, to which we now turn.