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NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

nytimes.com

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Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#81

Post by api »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #12
HenryKissinger wrote: post #11

> There are four key implications of this revolution that policymakers in the national security sector will need to address: > The first is that the unprecedented scale and pace of technological change will outstrip our ability to effectively adapt to it. Second, we will be in a world of ceaseless and pervasive cyberinsecurity and cyberconflict against nation-states, businesses and individuals. Third, the flood of da…

> > The first is that the unprecedented scale and pace of technological change will outstrip our ability to effectively adapt to it. Second, we will be in a world of ceaseless and pervasive cyberinsecurity and cyberconflict against nation-states, businesses and individuals. Third, the flood of data about human and machine activity will put such extraordinary economic and political power in the hands of the private se…

I've been talking about the prophecies of William Gibson for some time. He seems to have nailed the 21st century more than any other sci-fi writer.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#82

Post by imglorp »

jcranmer wrote: post #64
rafaelvasco wrote: post #61

No, in my opinion, we need to start working so that wars don't even make sense. A concept of the distant past. A future in which our descendants don't even know what wars are. In my vision there are no legitimate reasons for wars to exist at all. Of course this concept will sound alien and completely nuts for the majority, who are still in the fear based mindset; But then you can ask: So how do we protect ourselves f…

Because that turned out so well when we tried it 100 years ago. Instead, we got WW2, the most destructive war in history in absolute terms.

No, we tried isolationism before WW2, different from GP is asking for.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#83

Post by el_cujo »

antpls wrote: post #53
HenryKissinger wrote: post #11

> There are four key implications of this revolution that policymakers in the national security sector will need to address: > The first is that the unprecedented scale and pace of technological change will outstrip our ability to effectively adapt to it. Second, we will be in a world of ceaseless and pervasive cyberinsecurity and cyberconflict against nation-states, businesses and individuals. Third, the flood of da…

(I live in EU) For the 3rd and 4th points, we could rather envision a massive decentralization of power, which would be effectively a change in the model, but not necessarily in a bad way. Telecom, batteries and local energy production will allow much more flexible forms of local auto-organisations and decision-making. Parts of centralized institutions will be obsolete or further decentralized to better fit local spe…

A lot of this information could definitely be framed in a different way to make it sound almost Utopian, I agree, but I think it is hard to argue against the idea that we're relying on technology more and need cybersecurity to scale up. Otherwise its going to be like everyone with access to a computer has a bazooka. Speaking of which, I wonder if there will come a day when the solution to this problem is just heavily restricting access to hardware, background checks before you can buy a laptop/smart phone, etc.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#84

Post by bilbo0s »

umvi wrote: post #42
HenryKissinger wrote: post #21

That states like China and Russia can recruit the best cybersecurity talent in their respective countries, and force them to work for the government, while the United States can't, is a problem. If I were the president, I would focus on talent recruitment and retention. Google is paying its top cyberstaff 700k? Offer them 1M. Also get rid of archaic hiring practices like drug tests, and streamline the process to obta…

Well, NSA used to have the best and brightest until Snowden. Now NSA can't get the best and brightest because they are conscientious objectors.

In fairness, Snowden himself was at the NSA, so that's at least one data point that they were getting what I would call more "patriotic" people. Not necessarily the "best and brightest". I've been to MS Research. Some of my best friends work at Google. I've worked with Carnegie Mellon and MIT post docs. There is a big objective leap in capability between someone like Snowden, and the guys at MS Research.

We can only hope that NSA actually has some of these types of guys and we just don't know about it. But I'd argue that if the NSA was getting any of those types of guys, they weren't getting very many.

Another thing to think about is the athletics analogy. Schools like Stanford and Northwestern can't get the athletes that a place like Alabama can get. However, they do a good job of training up the athletes they can get to the point where these schools have actually been respectable from time to time. It would be interesting to consider the realistic feasibility of hiring "2 stars" or "no stars", so to speak, and then training them up. (Of course, this doesn't always work. Most schools have teams that suck. That's kind of the danger with the "train them up" idea.)

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#85

Post by sailfast »

This opinion piece is borderline screed and I'm not sure what to make of it.

Part of the piece is "OMG China!" with some pretty dubious assumptions, especially things like their GDP being bigger than the US is an existential threat.

"The world is scary" is not a narrative I will respond to. Of course it is - it's bloody frightening. But have you tried framing the discussion in a way that is not so warfare and zero sum-focused but rather collaborative?

The rest of this piece contains the kind of Cold War logic that, while understandable from someone whose job it is to solve these problems, is also alarming to see in what is supposed to be a "new approach" to preparedness from an agency.

This seems like a backdoor argument to compromising privacy, asking politely for businesses to be friendlier, while at the same time asking for more money than their already astronomical budget.

The obvious first step here is to Fix. Your. Own. House.

Become more transparent about what you are doing. Don't talk about secret bunkers in the first paragraph but instead about what you are going to do in order to share more with industry, and the kinds of investments you are going to make to ensure government can keep up.

Included in that is staffing proposals, workforce management changes, being more lenient with behaviors that are not relevant to your ability to hold a clearance to broaden recruitment, doing more work in the open and possibly a new imperative to focus on privacy and help protect privacy for all Americans despite best attempts of companies to destroy it. Some of that was alluded to but I find it really hard to take this piece seriously.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#86

Post by lacker »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #11

> There are four key implications of this revolution that policymakers in the national security sector will need to address: > The first is that the unprecedented scale and pace of technological change will outstrip our ability to effectively adapt to it. Second, we will be in a world of ceaseless and pervasive cyberinsecurity and cyberconflict against nation-states, businesses and individuals. Third, the flood of da…

This government lawyer sure writes essays that sound like they were written by a government lawyer.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#87

Post by merpnderp »

antpls wrote: post #53
HenryKissinger wrote: post #11

> There are four key implications of this revolution that policymakers in the national security sector will need to address: > The first is that the unprecedented scale and pace of technological change will outstrip our ability to effectively adapt to it. Second, we will be in a world of ceaseless and pervasive cyberinsecurity and cyberconflict against nation-states, businesses and individuals. Third, the flood of da…

(I live in EU) For the 3rd and 4th points, we could rather envision a massive decentralization of power, which would be effectively a change in the model, but not necessarily in a bad way. Telecom, batteries and local energy production will allow much more flexible forms of local auto-organisations and decision-making. Parts of centralized institutions will be obsolete or further decentralized to better fit local spe…

When the NSA says power will move to the private sector, I don't think they're referring to 'the people', but the wealthy who control most of the private sector.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#89

Post by wycy »

bilbo0s wrote: post #52
HenryKissinger wrote: post #21

That states like China and Russia can recruit the best cybersecurity talent in their respective countries, and force them to work for the government, while the United States can't, is a problem. If I were the president, I would focus on talent recruitment and retention. Google is paying its top cyberstaff 700k? Offer them 1M. Also get rid of archaic hiring practices like drug tests, and streamline the process to obta…

Sounds like an interesting plan. Where is the money going to come from? We cutting something else? Like outdated military infrastructure since we should be ramping up for the cyber future? Or are we instead going to ramp up the deficit spending more to cover the extra expenses? Have you actually thought your proposed solution through? Have you considered the larger picture? We're already deficit spending at a level a…

>Have you actually thought your proposed solution through? Have you considered the larger picture?

The OP's plan seems like a good one to bolster national security. OP doesn't need to lay out every single step of the solution, all the way down to the US education system, in order to make it a good point.

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