Long-time readers know that I have a rather varied set of interests and that I’ve got a “thing” for history, particularly military history. Knowing that, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I was recently reading an article titled “Cyber is the fourth dimension of war” (ground, sea and air being the first three dimensions). It’s not a bad article, but it is mistaken. Cyberwar is the fifth dimension of war. The first dimension, today and for all of time past, is the human mind. Contests are won or lost, not on some field of battle, virtual or physical, but in the minds of the combatants. For example, if you believe you’ve lost, then you have.
The painting shown above illustrates this nicely. During the Napoleonic period, infantry that was charged by cavalry would form a square, presenting a hedge of bayonets to all sides. Horses, being intelligent creatures, will not impale themselves on pointy things, thus the formation provides protection to the infantry who were free to fire at the encircling cavalry. Charging disciplined, unbroken infantry was a losing proposition for the cavalry under almost all circumstances. Note the use of “almost”.
At the Battle of García Hernández, July 1812, something unusual happened. One French formation was late in firing, and a wounded horse ran blindly into the square, breaking it up. The attacking British (Hannoverian, to be precise) cavalry rode into the gap and forced the surrender of the French infantry that comprised it. This, of course, was simply a matter of physics. However, two further squares broke up when charged due to the effect of what happened to the first one on their morale. Believing they were beaten, they failed to maintain cohesion and their anticipated defeat became a reality.
So, what’s the point?
Greger Wikstrand and I have been trading posts on the topic of innovation since late 2015. Greger’s latest, “Spring clean your mind”, deals with the concepts of infowar and propaganda (aka “fake news”). This is another example of what Greger’s written about in the past, a concept he dubbed black hat innovation: “Whenever there is innovation or invention there is also misuse”.
Whether you call it black hat innovation or abuse cases (my term), it’s a concept we need to be aware of. It is a concept that affect us, not just as technologists, but as ordinary human beings. We need to be aware of the potential for active abuse. We also need to be aware of the potential for problems that caused by things that make our life more convenient or more pleasant:
This isn’t to say that Facebook is some evil empire, but that we need to bear some responsibility for not allowing ourselves to become trapped in an echo chamber:
It’s something we need to take responsibility for. We can’t hope for a technological deus ex machina to bail us out. As Tim Bass recently noted on his Cyberspace Event Processing Blog:
The big “AI” processing “pie in the sky” plan for cyber defense we all read about is not going to work “as advertised” because we cannot program machines to solve problems that we cannot solve ourselves. There is no substitute for the advancement and development of the human mind to solve complex problems. Delegating the task of “thinking” to machines is doomed to fail, and fail “big time”. It seems like humanity has, in a manner of speaking, “given up” on humans developing the intelligence to manage and defend cyberspace, so they have decided to turn it all over to machines.
Wrong approach!
The right approach, in my opinion, is to be intentional and active in learning. Consuming information should not be a matter of sitting back and shoveling it in, but one of filtering, testing, and appraising. How much time do you spend reading viewpoints you absolutely disagree with? How much time do you spend exploring information?
In 1645, as he was looking back at his long and successful career as a samurai, where a single loss often meant death, Miyamoto Musashi concluded that although rigorous sword practice was essential, it wasn’t enough. At the end of the first chapter of A Book of Five Rings, he also admonishes aspiring warriors to “Cultivate a wide variety of interests in the arts” and “Be knowledgable in a wide variety of occupations.”
Similarly, Boyd, who was was a keen student of Musashi, described his method as looking across a wide variety of fields — “domains” he called them — searching for underlying principles, “invariants.” He would then experiment with syntheses involving these principles until he evolved a solution to the problem he was working on. Because they involved bits and pieces from a variety of domains, he called these syntheses “snowmobiles” (skis, handlebar from a bicycle, etc.)
Perception is critical. We are made or unmade, less by our circumstances and more by our perception of them. Companies that have suffered disruptions have done so not because they were unable to respond, but because they either believed themselves invulnerable or believed themselves incapable. Likewise, as individuals, we have control over what information we expose ourselves to and how we manage that exposure.
Sense-making is a critical skill that requires active involvement. The passive get passed by.
[Painting of the battle of Garcia Hernandez by Adolf Northen, housed in the Landesmuseum Hannover. Photo by Michael Ritter via Wikimedia Commons]
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