• Home
  • Home index
  • Daily thoughts — 2008
  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • 2016
  • 2017
  • 2018
  • 2019
  • PROBAWAY
  • Tao Teh Ching
  • Philosophers
  • Epigrams
  • EarthArk
  • World Heritage
  • Metascales
  • Conan Doyle
  • Person of the Year

Probaway – Life Hacks

~ Many helpful hints on living your life more successfully.

Tag Archives: The Perfect Weapon

It’s bad to use our cyber capabilities to create confusion.

07 Monday Oct 2019

Posted by probaway in diary, happiness, Kindness, policy, psychology, survival

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cyber warfare, The Most Imperfect Weapon Ever Created So Far, The Perfect Weapon

One of my groups has been studying David Sanger’s book The Perfect Weapon. Most discussion groups I attend have an agreed-upon statement like, “What is said here stays here,” and to respect that hope of privacy I don’t mention the names of the groups that I write about. But, it’s now becoming an idle statement of a vanishing hope, because The Perfect Weapon makes it perfectly clear that any personal privacy we hold dear is vanishing. Even spy organizations that are fanatical about maintaining their own secrets can’t keep their secrets secret for very long. It appears that soon even a single digit that is deeply encrypted is subject to decryption because of the context that it is buried within.

Our personal daily lives are surrounded by microphones and speakers that can also function as microphones. And an invisible laser beam reflected off a vibrating glass window can be converted into the sounds of the conversations within the room. Even our thoughts can be penetrated to some degree by observing our behavior closely enough. It is a person’s physical behavior that most clearly represents his deeper thoughts and not his spoken or written words.

The argument that I presented today was that the book we are studying, The Perfect Weapon, was grievously misnamed. It would have been better named, “The Most Imperfect Weapon Ever Created So Far.”

Cyberwarfare is counterproductive because the more cooperative human behavior is the more benefits accrue to all parties. But using the deeply hideable qualities of the sources of statements made on the internet to create confusion and distrust eventually hurts everyone. That behavior makes the whole world a worse place for everyone because no one can trust anyone. And those most likely to suffer the most are the ones who are perpetrating distrust of other people. The reason is that the perpetrators of distrust become suspicious of everyone and everything, and the billions of people now on the internet become seen as potential creators of falsehoods. The perps’ personal suffering may not happen instantly, but over the remainder of their lives, as their distrust of other people grows their isolation and pain will grow. How can it be otherwise?

People are most in contact with their own thoughts, and if those thoughts are focused on how to confuse other people, then they themselves will become doubtful of everything that comes into their consciousness and they will become totally confused about the reality around them and within them.

“Honesty is the best policy” was my argument, but no one seemed convinced that it was viable in the modern world.

The Perfect Weapon by David E. Sanger – comments

26 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by probaway in diary, reviews, survival

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

David E. Sanger, The Perfect Weapon

The book The Perfect Weapon is misnamed because the use of cyberattacks can cause damage that is unrelated to the sender of the attack. Because the reason for a specific attack is unknown, and often unknowable, the effect is to worsen the lives of the people affected but without giving them any knowledge of how to respond to improve the relationship. The use of cyber techniques to attack countries’ basic infrastructure lowers the overall capacity of the victim nation to thrive, but it doesn’t help the aggressor nation to thrive any better than the other nations of the world. However, if it is clear that a particular group is a primary beneficiary of an attack, then those are the ones who will be counter-attacked by the victims if that is possible.

The Perfect Weapon is terribly inefficient for communicating with the other “peaceful” nations what is the action they desire. It would be hoped that everyone would benefit from cooperation, but creating anxiety between nations by using cyber weapons will lessen everyone’s willingness to cooperate. It is counterproductive and self-destructive.

I know it is naïve to expect contending nations to behave kindly toward one another, but to behave otherwise brings anxiety to the perpetrators of cybercrimes as well as to their intended victims. The whole game is counterproductive because the perpetrators expect counter-attacks, and by attacking they set themselves up to be attacked and thus to become miserable.

Sometimes spying on other people’s intentions can make sense, because if you know clearly what the other people need and want it is possible to give them greater cooperation and satisfaction that will rebound to yourself. But to use cyber technology to spy so there can be greater disruptions to the lives of those other people will ultimately just bring retaliation. It is a vicious feedback cycle that can easily get out of control and potentially last forever.

I’m totally opposed to those kinds of secret actions, and I don’t recommend reading The Perfect Weapon because all a private individual can do is to defend themselves with feeble internet filtering tools, and there isn’t much, if any, good advice in the book on how we might do whatever it is that we need to do to protect ourselves.

These days a private individual is vulnerable. Sad. Enjoy.

 

Subscribe with RSS

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Blog Stats

  • 2,069,240 Views of Probaway

Today’s popular 10 of 4,418 posts at PROBAWAY

  • How to do a deep cough to clear inhaled food.
  • Philosophers Squared - Democritus
  • Jack the Ripper was Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Experiments with your eyes and brain #3
  • An unusual hair patch on my inner wrist
  • A spider bite photographed for two months
  • A trick for opening a ziplock bag.
  • Sermon on the Sea by Mahatma Gandhi - review
  • How to stop broken ribs from hurting when you sneeze.
  • Earth is different from space and so am I.

The recent 50 posts

  • Nothing happened today.
  • What are these bumps on my finger? Revisited.
  • The Mona Lisa I know.
  • A morning walk in the snow
  • Bend changes color every day
  • Bend views
  • RUBÁIYÁT of Omar Khayyam translated by E. H. Whinfield
  • RUBÁIYÁT of Omar Khayyam translated by Justin McCarthy
  • It’s time for some RUBÁIYÁT of Omar Khayyam
  • In Huawei cropping versus Corel Paint Shop Pro
  • I have a problem. What to do?
  • The Tao Teh Ching – #66 – Revealed by Lao Tzu – Rendered by Charles Scamahorn
  • Weird stuff at the Lemon Tree restaurant
  • Some stuff I saw in Bend, Oregon
  • Acts of kindness are always right now.
  • What are these bumps on my finger?
  • A prayer to the Universe
  • A brief encounter with Bend, Oregon
  • A brief encounter with my nose
  • A brief encounter with S. I. Hayakawa
  • A brief encounter with J. Robert Oppenheimer
  • A Brief Encounter with a Famous person
  • A Brief Encounter with Josef Muench
  • A Brief Encounter with Algernon Black
  • A brief encounter with Wendy Northcutt
  • A brief encounter with Ron Pelosi
  • A brief encounter with Buzz Aldrin
  • A brief encounter with Ray Kurzweil
  • A brief encounter with Vint Cerf
  • A brief encounter with Art Linkletter
  • A brief encounter with Jefferson Poland
  • A brief encounter with the Dalai Lama
  • You can’t change the present.
  • What is the meaning of life compared to gravity?
  • What to do with Halloween pumpkins?
  • A strange discovery about the word Christ
  • Five hours sleep
  • A prayer to the Universe
  • Real estate explosion here in Bend brings problems
  • I was challenged to rewrite the 23 Psalm
  • A typical view of my present world.
  • We are going extinct
  • The Tao Teh Ching – #65 – Revealed by Lao Tzu – Rendered by Charles Scamahorn
  • I was recently challenged to define God.
  • I was asked to write a death prayer
  • A photo of my face five minutes ago.
  • Significant places that formed my personality.
  • My ninth day of a cold is close to a normal Sunday
  • Curtis Lemay — the real Doomsday prophet.
  • What’s the kindest thing you can do?

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy