Excellent illustrations aside, this reading was direly needed, and it’s even outdated by just over 5 years. Insane that nearly nothing has been done to promote international cybersecurity since this article was released
In fact, I’m certain that the internet has possibly deteriorated beyond salvaging at this point. While most mainstream news sources are all writing from the same instruction manual provided by Government lobbyists, Zuckerberg has morphed further into the lizard person we all know he is inside (I’m joking, but also not. That man’s stoic thousand-yard stare is unmatched), and Elon Musk as single-handedly driven twitter into the ground by running around chewing on wires.
Doxxing has become a frighteningly common for many users online, the onus is on the individual to arm themselves to the teeth with VPNs, two-step authentications, and a different password that is 30 characters long for each and every single website/app account they possess.
Oh, and we can’t forget the bots. They’re everywhere.
More frightening still is the surge in AI use, deepfakes, and hacking, as Wheeler briefly mentions. On a macro level, this can be concerning targeted attacks on healthcare infrastructure, and maybe those pesky nuclear launch codes; on a micro level, however, it has never been more frightening for women and girls to be online. The AI technology being made available to anyone with an internet connection and a pulse, deepfakes using innocent selfies are being utilized to make pornographic material of that person; this winter saw Taylor Swift targeted, and while she’s a billionaire with the power to make it disappear, the same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the average woman.
Another way it is ruining the lives of individuals is through the theft of art; companies continuously turning to AI to avoid paying artists for their work, while AI will pull from existing artist’s work that exists online, essentially recreating their work for free. Disney has been guilty of this with their recent releases on Disney+ (Loki season 2 poster, entire opening credits of Secret Invasion, and even a whole row of actors in a scene on Prom Pact, had been found to be entirely AI generated), despite being a multi-hundred-billion-dollar empire that can certainly pay their creatives.
On that note, kudos to Wheeler for paying the artist, Kyle Hilton, for the gorgeous illustrations provided for this article.
The internet has become a scary place, and while the topic of a cyber–Geneva Convention is fascinating to read about, and Estonia’s mild success with their Tallinn Manual; I think the question is, what are the chances something like this is created and implemented, when there is so much money to be saved by corporations who have no compunctions over lobbying against it? I suppose I am interested in witnessing the creation of one, if it hasn’t been done already; but I think something needs to be done about the neoliberal puppet masters who have far too much sway in the various governments of the world first.
Reference
Wheeler, T. (2018, September 12). In Cyberwar, There are No Rules. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/in-cyberwar-there-are-no-rules-cybersecurity-war-defense/
ma guarda quante stelle nel cielo 