David Sanger has produced a deep look at how the political and policy world sees computer and network espionage and sabotage.\u00a0 People inside and outside that world call that “cyber” but that makes me and other tech weenies of my cohort a little queasy.\u00a0 My queasiness aside, these technologies are commanding people’s attention.<\/p>\n
Sanger does some remarkable research and journalism in tracking publicly revealed and discovered uses of computer and network espionage tech. His work shows how this stuff is live and in use.\u00a0 On one hand, people use whatever tools they have or can make when they want to spy; on the other the level of technical sophistication is surprising.\u00a0 Weapon<\/em> is worth reading to get that intuition.<\/p>\n I do think that there are a couple angles from which readers – like me – should be skeptical.\u00a0 One is the aura of secrecy and awe that reporters and managers of these technologies wrap them in.\u00a0 Some of that is because the mindset of using technology outside of its specification is unnatural to a lot of people.\u00a0 In Zen and the Art<\/em><\/a>, Robert Persig explained how beer cans are also essential repair elements.\u00a0 That mentality pervades the thinking of people who make “cyber” work and it feels like magic until you develop the technique.\u00a0 It’s the difference between watching a magic show and watching a magic show as Penn or Teller<\/a>.\u00a0 Easier to say than do.<\/p>\n Holding the secrets as secrets and wrapping the technology in some awe helps with getting funding, so there’s a significant incentive to do so.\u00a0 I do think that research and development funding inside and outside the government can use the funding, so I agree with that tactic to some extent.\u00a0 I worry when it’s not a tactic.\u00a0 People who don’t understand the ideas tend to underestimate it; extra awe is a useful corrective.\u00a0 Readers who want to really understand the underlying technology should adjust filters accordingly.<\/p>\n Sanger’s invaluable contribution is framing the human elements.\u00a0 Who funded what and when.\u00a0 Who wound up in the papers and who didn’t.\u00a0 How the people who move armies and conventional espionage resources view them.\u00a0 For me, that’s an extremely illuminating view of the world.<\/p>\n Strongly Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Sanger has produced a deep look at how the political and policy world sees computer and network espionage and sabotage.\u00a0 People inside and outside that world call that “cyber” but that makes me and other tech weenies of my cohort a little queasy.\u00a0 My queasiness aside, these technologies are commanding people’s attention. Sanger does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2680,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678\/revisions\/2680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}