One if by land, two if by Internet

The Russians are coming and the Chinese, and the North Koreans, and the Iranians, and so on. It’s called asymmetric warfare. Where, a smaller interest with a complaint against someone big and powerful uses, inexpensive, yet effective means to do great harm. Terrorists and insurgents employ these tactics all the time, from using vehicles as battering rams, or vessels for explosives or dispatching suicide bombers. They get great affect with little cost. They attack in small simple ways against an enemy who is building tanks, airplanes, and ships only they can.

The Soviet Union lost the Cold War because they couldn’t keep up economically. We now have many nation states, including Russia who have learned that lesson. Regrettably, they have changed tactics. They and others have mastered the collapse of time and space the internet provides. They now take advantage of this anonymous, unprotected network to gain unfettered access to our critical, power, financial, political, and corporate systems from the comfort of local Russian office buildings. They use the anonymity of the internet to produce propaganda that is so wide spread it overwhelms reliable information at times; information we need to make critical decisions, like, who should lead us.

What’s worse, we are complicit. The private sector, government, and citizens alike, look the other way. The private sector because media platforms, and other internet based companies make too much money from anonymity and monetizing user data. And since they are global, they feel little allegiance to helping the United States protect its interests when it means antagonizing foreign markets.

The government stands aside because they are not compelled to act as fast as the technology advances. We also have a belief in this country that government should not interfere with private markets. So even though the government is the only entity capable of defending the private sector from these attacks, our political beliefs keep them on the sidelines. Even more cynically, our politicians make too much money from the private sector lobbying efforts to regulate the internet for our safety.

As users of the internet, we accept the premise that we must give our privacy away to be “free” on the internet. It is a premise meant only to allow our data, actions, and preferences to be sold to the highest bidder; without compensation to us; without consideration of how our data will be used, for good or ill.

From any perspective, we are complicit in our own economic and political demise.

I’ve been told for a decade that I should stop talking about nation state cyber threats. That the profit motive of the private sector will cause them to properly secure their platforms and protect user privacy. That I should stop saying that the public internet is the most dangerous thing we use each day; that in its current, exploitable form, it threatens our economy, our democracy and existence as a nation.

I’m asked to stop because the ideas seem far-fetched and certainly uncomfortable; I’ll continue to speak up, as I fear I am right.

By the way, they are coming by Internet. Coming any other way is too expensive and takes too long. Plus, our inaction helps them.