JULY 22, 2020 – Yesterday I watched a webinar on advising start-ups about cyber security. Like any cyber security consultant, the presenter scared the crap out of her audience. I’d sat through such sessions before and was generally aware of the perils associated with security breaches. But one needs a periodic reminder that one’s devices are radioactive; that one’s SSN/EIN, account numbers, and email accounts are inverse weapons in cyber-space—in the wrong hands they can and will be used against the owner.
The adversary is no longer “big government.” It’s the countless faceless criminals, many outside the U.S. (Not to drop names—the idiom signaling that a name is about to be dropped—but “Russia!” is where cyber-based criminality is a “natural resource,” on which post-Communist “big government” is all too eager to capitalize.)
We’re deep into a game of punch-block, in which thieves punch and cybersecurity guards block, each encounter leading to an ever more vertiginous level of sophistication.
Behind much of the criminality is exceptional prestidigitation—“You don’t see us, but we see you!” or “You think you’re looking at [a given screen], but you’re really looking at a façade.” Also, the consultant tells us, behind most internet pornography are financial frauds—“bait and switch” or more precisely, “bait and snatch”; schemes of sex for money . . . the oldest profession on earth.
Add to criminality, “legitimate” procurement of information by Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other Big Data platforms, and the individual doesn’t have a fighting chance to guarantee privacy or security in this dystopian world of Cyber Games. Not even gun rights advocates have more power than our spear-chucking ancestors in resisting the overwhelming powers marshalled against us. And no government arsenal can match an army of bots commanded by an anonymous legion of hackers hither and yon.
Sure, a person can disengage; go “off the grid,” but this means jumping ship in the middle of the ocean. The initial leap is simple. Throw our smartphones (just how smart is beyond our control!) into the deep blue sea; hurl our iPads, notebooks, laptops, and desktops after them; push our motor vehicles (and their increasingly sophisticated computerized elements) in too, along with Alexa, Bluetooth devices, and that robotic vacuum cleaner. Don’t forget your wallet and charge cards, debit cards, and driver’s license.
But what about all your real “money”? That’s a bit tougher to haul with you as you “jump ship.” (Try calling your investment advisor and asking for all your retirement savings to be converted to gold coins of equal value (to be determined by the spot price as divulged by . . . the internet!) and air-dropped to you on the railing of the “big ship” as you prepare to plunge into the ocean swells.
Once you’re in the water, watching the dark ship steam off toward the edge of the earth . . . what then? How will you eat, drink, keep yourself warm, safe, and dry? Oops! You’re in the (cold, wet) drink. Sharks are circling.
Damned webinar! Why would I watch such a thing?!
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
