Move Fast and Break America

NOTE: This report was originally published on LinkedIn back in May 2020.

In my previous article, I argued that in the present age Information Warfare is the Achilles’ heel for US Defense. Expanding on that, this article is aimed at going deeper into why conventional US military might is ineffective and getting routed in this warfare.

Given that there could be different interpretations on what it means, let me use this piece from Syracuse University’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism to describe Information Warfare — it includes psychological warfare, disinformation, deception, and public diplomacy. As CNN’s investigative report on a whole industry in Macedonia dedicated to reaping financial rewards through US social interference points out — it can be easily done without breaking any laws and by simply exploiting business models of US built social media platforms and digital tools. If you want to further educate yourself on the hidden battles to collect your data, control your world and rip apart our social fabric, I suggest reading Bruce Schneier’s Data and Goliath and Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction.

Figure 1: Personal picture taken inside Google Headquarters in Mountain View California. November 2014

Personally, I believe it is the utter lack of Socio-Tech accountability that is the single biggest factor that makes United States the most vulnerable nation on our planet. What exactly do I mean by Socio-Tech accountability? We live in societies where Politics, Religion and Media [PRM] play the roles necessary to ensure adherence to acceptable social frameworks and maintain harmony. These are three powerful traditional social pillars that have done a fairly decent job of [a] keeping each other’s power in check [b] having their own power figures constantly vetted in the public eye — in other words, being accountable to society at large. With its rapid advances and near irreplaceable position in social and personal spheres, technology is a new force that seemingly has little in terms of accountability towards its impact on social harmony and it’s “power figures” are programmers and math geeks that hardly ever go through a public social scrutiny. More importantly, it has shown the ability to take on and disrupt all three traditional pillars. A powerful national defense is intimately married to its traditional PRM pillars. In case of technology, as Gen. Hayden said — US focused on cyber dominance and has found itself being “assaulted” in Information Warfare domain. In this domain, direct targets are not military or critical economic assets but traditional PRM pillars, and US security apparatus is poorly equipped to defend itself. And, biggest threats may not be from well known adversaries like Iran, Russia or China but from within so-called US allies.

Figure 2: Autograph given to Karthik Krishna by a former NSA & CIA Director at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, CO.

Let us review what Cambridge Analytica did during its involvement with two most crucial democratic processes that already happened in 21st century– Leave EU and Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Campaign. It was a British political consulting firm that combined expertise in psychographic profiling with appropriation of general online data, Facebook-likes, and smartphone data and strategic communication during electoral processes. Now here is April 2020 Deloitte sponsored content on using AI to unleash power of data that could “aid processes from investigating crime to providing intelligence for policy analysis.” I think it is noteworthy that while they were both still legal entities, both Cambridge Analytica and Deloitte were headquartered in London, UK. Within this context, I will restate what I personally told FBI Cyber Task Force Supervisory Special Agent Chad Alvarado at a Cyber Workshop held at University of Colorado-Colorado Springs: Post Brexit, if there is a single entity with the access, ability and motive to destabilize and divide America, it is United Kingdom. While I don’t claim to be the trigger for this investigation, I do want to add that this conversation happened in 2018 two months before a Canadian whistleblower and former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie testified before US Senate Judiciary Committee. Three critical points I want to make now are that [a] in a capitalistic setting, tech’s influence has poor accountability to US society and regulation may never catch up to its advances [b] US allies can [or maybe could] easily gain leverage over us by unleashing digital tools against vulnerable PRM social pillars [c] addressing this as a privacy or vaguely defined corporate ethics or social responsibility issues are ineffective. This has to be addressed as a national security issue.

Back to my comments on British access, ability and motive to socially break America. The trigger for my analysis and deduction on British intent was a personal exchange with a then US Missile Defense Agency community member, former President of Information Systems Security Association — Colorado Springs Chapter, and former Director of Strategic Development for Socio-Tech Academy [a company I founded] — Frank Gearhart. Frank and I were discussing a Reuters investigation that revealed that ArcSight, a tool used to protect DoD networks, allowed Russia to hunt for security vulnerabilities. Among other things, an interesting fact popped out — a British firm owned ArcSight. It is, however, important to talk about the motive part. My opinion is that it was President Obama who gave UK a strong motive when he basically got in bed with Germany and publicly stated that UK will be at the “back of the line” in terms of US priorities if it voted to leave EU. It is sort of like getting involved in your best friend’s divorce and publicly stating that his soon to be ex-wife will hold a position of higher priority for you. You don’t usually do that to an old and powerful ally!

Fast forward today, with Trump Administration showing zero objective intent to address US Information Warfare vulnerabilities, God only knows how many of our enemies and so-called allies are in a position to use a “British” playbook and hurt American might into submission. It seems the unprecedented success of US based information and communication technology companies has directly led to destruction of American defense might. “We broke Facebook” is what Whistleblower Wylie said. Irony that one of the most successful and financially profitable 21st Century US company with a highly touted philosophy to “move fast and break things” had enabled foreign forces to implement a playbook to move fast and break America.

Footnotes:

[1] Timing of this publication was influenced by two factors: looming US political battles, by extension social division openings during 2020 US Presidential Elections; and potentially profound negative privacy, by extension national security implications of huge data aggregation on COVID-19 test results and contract tracing.

[2] I have been inside Facebook Headquarters and use its tools actively to stay connected with friends and family all over the world. Adding YouTube and Twitter into the mix — these platforms have brought with them previously unimaginable social benefits. However, not recognizing and proactively addressing the downside may have already brought the mightiest nation to hit rock bottom. It is a total system failure and sad.

[3] I founded Socio-Tech Academy in June 2016 to address the growing imbalance between unchecked advances of technology in society and the need to for Socio-Tech Accountability solutions. For their support and cherished memories of intellectually stimulating conversations, a shout out to numerous family members, friends and professional associates including members from US Air Force Academy and Los Alamos National Laboratory. We spent a lot of time thinking of solutions and I intend to address that in forthcoming article(s).

Figure 3: Personal picture taken inside Facebook Headquarters in Menlo Park California. March 2015