“If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.”
When nodes where accorded the capacity to route, compute and distribute information across a network, of their own free will, the internet was heralded as an unregulated space, in which everything and anything was possible. This digital universe full of information also culminated in an unstable environment, that was increasingly difficult to regulate and control. Any system that exists without regulations will be subject to those who are willing to take advantage of its structural vulnerabilities and the internet is no exception. Hackers who exploit weaknesses within digital networks can be motivated by a number of reasons, sometimes profit, activism, intellectual stimulation or boredom. In addition they may have a more benevolent focus. Malicious factions who violate computer safety for personal gain exist and they are “the epitome of all that the public fears in a computer criminal”. Coined Black hats or Crackers these programmers break into computer systems and destroy data or cause the network to become unusable for those who are authorised to view it. Although much of the digital resistance online has been a positive force, not all members of the hacker subculture prescribe to its ethos. The ideological purity of the hacktivists such as Assange and Snowden is not the prevailing manifesto nor is this movement permeated by a spirit of playfulness and exploration.
The idea of the internet as the final frontier, a digital “wildwest” is a fallacy. The majority of individuals, myself included enter this “game of shadows” through a portal, an Ifuedal, whether it be google, Facebook or twitter. A walled gardens who’s central employment is to spy and record our personal information for those who posses power. As an online user I have increasingly become aware of my own naivety, especially in the wake of this weeks discussion. Our governments have replaced the 007’s and the KGB with a more persuasive and effective form of surveillance. A machine that deletes nothing and records everything, an endless creation of data in which information never dies.
This “descent into darkness” becomes more expansive when we consider the implications of cyberwarfare. These battles are not played out in fields or deserts, in open water or remote jungles but in surbuban office buildings, quiet rooms, in the presence of blank computer screens. In addition this battle is being fount with with some of the most insidious digital weapons that have ever existed, capable of infecting power plants and banks, destroying water supplies and fundamentally ravaging the very infrastructure that once appeared unassailable. One example is The discovery of Stuxnet, a 500-kilobyte computer worm that infected the software of at least 14 industrial sites in Iran, including a uranium-enrichment plant. Although a computer virus relies on an unwitting victim to install it, a worm spreads on its own, often over a computer network. This worm was an unprecedentedly masterful and malicious piece of code that attacked in three phases. First, it targeted Microsoft Windows machines and networks, repeatedly replicating itself. Then it sought out Siemens Step7 software, which is also Windows-based and used to program industrial control systems that operate equipment, such as centrifuges. Finally, it compromised the programmable logic controllers. The worm’s authors could thus spy on the industrial systems and even cause the fast-spinning centrifuges to tear themselves apart, unbeknownst to the human operators at the plant.
Although the authors of Stuxnet haven’t been officially identified, the size and sophistication of the worm have led experts to believe that it could have been created only with the sponsorship of a nation-state, and although no one’s owned up to it, leaks from officials in the United States and Israel strongly suggest that those two countries did the deed. Since the discovery of Stuxnet, Schouwenberg and other computer-security engineers have been fighting off other weaponized viruses, such as Duqu, Flame, and Gauss, an onslaught that shows no signs of abating. This marked a turning point in geopolitical conflicts, when the apocalyptic scenarios once only imagined in Science fiction
When listening to this weeks lecture, I immediately thought of the old anti-piracy videos that you used to be forced to sit through if you rented a movie or a DVD. It had urgent death-metal-thrash techno music in the background, and the words on the screen popped up, informing you that you wouldn’t steal a car, or a handbag, or a television, or a movie. It then proceeded to to inform you that “downloading pirated movies is stealing” and wait for it, that “stealing was against the law” it ended with a rather a bleak message that in fact “piracy was a crime”.
Most people would agree that stealing is wrong. Yet most people myself included would be guilty of downloading illegally. Why is this, maybe because we don’t appreciate online piracy as an illicit activity which is worth obeying. Ted discusses in the lecture how the social parameters and protocols of memory retention have been established by individuals. “You wouldn’t record somebody without their knowledge” “You wouldn’t record a personal conversation without someones permission”. Yet this is happening online in which everything is being recorded and you are completely unaware of who is the culprit. Their is no set of established protocol for online data retention. Much like their is no great sense of public outrage or censure of illegal downloading. . We have established gestures and protocols for memory retention. Social parameters associated with taking a photo, recording a conversation, taking a selfie. But nothing in the face of a machine which default setting is to filter nothing and collect everything.
I thought it was interesting how Ted stated that all totalitarian regimes have been characterised by persuasive surveillance. This realisation made me kind of sad. Primarily because I have always considered myself a strong believer in the transparency of my own democracy. The nanny states and the dictatorships had little to do with current political climate that I ascribed to. I even remember waking up at 3am to watch Barack Obama’s inaugural speech. I was so full of reinvigorated hope and belief that the world was capable of positive and powerful change. Not to say that this opportunity has now been lost.
However my impressions where radically different. I saw US and Australia as a strong ally, moving towards a greater protection of the rule of law, the protection of private information and the facilitation of free speech. I was in Yr 8 so this may explain my idealism however the election of the recent liberal government and the actions of George Brandis in trying to give unlimited power to spies and secret police has left me rather despondent.
References
Moore, Robert (2006). Cybercrime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime (1st ed.). Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson Publishing.
Mitew, T 2014, ‘Dark Fiber: hackers, botnets, cyberwar‘, DIGC202, Lecture, [online] <http://prezi.com/iiied2_aa8tc/digc202-dark-fiber-hackers-botnets-cyberwar/> Viewed 17/10/14.
Midly disgruntled, Permanently Interested 
Good point about how we enter the digital system now. We are all familiar with facebook, so any attempt to enter the “shadowy world” of hacking and such would be noticed.
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