We have spent so much time worrying about a 'cyber Pearl Harbor,'' the attack that takes out the power grid, that we have focused far too little on the subtle manipulation of data that can mean that no election, medical record, or self-driving car can be truly trusted.
Interpretation
We often fear catastrophic cyber attacks while neglecting the dangers of data manipulation that can undermine trust in important systems.
David E. Sanger's quote emphasizes that while society is preoccupied with the potential for large-scale cyber attacks, such as a severe disruption of critical infrastructure, we are overlooking the more insidious risks posed by the manipulation of data. This manipulation can have far-reaching implications, affecting elections, medical records, and the operation of autonomous technologies, thus highlighting the urgent need to address not only brute force attacks but also the integrity of the data that underpins our digital world.
In practice
During a cybersecurity conference, this quote can highlight the overlooked risks of data integrity.
Because our government has been so incompetent at protecting its highly sophisticated cyberweapons, those weapons have been stolen out of the electronic vaults of the National Security Agency and the C.I.A. and shot right back at us.
As we put autonomous cars on the road, connect Alexas to our lights and our thermostats, put ill-protected Internet-connected video cameras on our houses, and conduct our financial lives over our cell phones, our vulnerabilities expand exponentially.
When I was trying to popularize the concept of the Internet - ten or 15 years ago - I came up with this concept of "the 5 Cs." Services needed to have content, context, community, commerce, and connectivity. After that, when I was trying to think of what the key management principles were to build into the culture, I started talking about the Ps. The P's were things like passion, perseverance, perspective and people. I think the people aspect is really the most important one.
We want to build technology that everybody loves using, and that affects everyone. We want to create beautiful, intuitive services and technologies that are so incredibly useful that people use them twice a day. Like they use a toothbrush. There aren't that many things people use twice a day.
We don't pay a whole lot of attention to the Internet until people have played the game - then we pay a lot of attention to whether people liked it. We read through it and see it, but we don't take it into consideration. ... [The Internet] is not going to dictate the direction of where the game goes.
Increasingly, our decisions will be made by the algorithms that surround us. Whenever there is a big dilemma, you just ask Google what to do. And what kind of life is that?
Persons grouped around a fire or candle for warmth or light are less able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people supplied with electric light. In the same way, the social and educational patterns latent in automation are those of self-employment and artistic autonomy.
Don't just buy a new video game. Make one.
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