Editor's introduction: This is the first of three installments in Information Warfare, Vol. 1: REVISITED, featuring excerpts from Winn Schwartau's groundbreaking work, originally written in the early 1990s. More than three decades later, Schwartau argues that cybersecurity has failed to address many of the vulnerabilities he warned about then. We've lightly updated dated terminology while preserving his original voice, humor and arguments. The series begins with a contradiction that remains central to cybersecurity: We need computers, but we don't trust them.
The information warrior wants to mess with our minds
Just like the terrorist, the Information Warrior wants to mess with our minds.
As a society, we pretend we are sophisticated enough to handle just about any situation life offers. We tend to project a cavalier nonchalance when incredible technological achievements leave the lab and arrive in our homes and businesses.
What technology and Computers Everywhere have precipitated, however, is a complex set of psychological ills that permeate our culture.
The bottom line is that we really aren't comfortable with what the technical wizards and gurus have wrought and what their evangelists have sold us.
The same argument could have been made more than half a millennium ago, when the first of four stunning technological achievements cracked open the door to the Information Age.
In 1450, Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press. For the first time in history, humanity had the ability to mass-produce and distribute information.
Before Gutenberg, the literate few controlled what was read and written. The political implications were inescapable. Those who controlled information controlled society.
The printing press began shifting that balance.
The telephone continued the transformation. Alexander Graham Bell's invention made communication personal and increasingly accessible. Radio carried information through the air. Satellite communications expanded networks beyond national borders.
Then came the personal computer.
For decades, computers had been the province of governments and the largest corporations. The machines were expensive, enormous and operated by a relatively small class of specialists.
Intel, Apple and other pioneers helped change that. Computing power began moving from centralized institutions into homes and offices.
Now we have Computers Everywhere and the Global Network.
The Information Age is here.
But we've been saying that since the fifteenth century.
Binary schizophrenia: I need computers. I don't trust computers.
In 1964, French philosopher Jacques Ellul contended that technology had reduced man, its inventor, to a mere cog serving a global megamachine.
Seven years later, Charles Reich warned that technology, organization and administration were running beyond human control.
These concerns predated the personal computer revolution.
And they point toward a conflict I call Binary Schizophrenia.
I'm not using the term as a clinical diagnosis. I'm describing the psychological pressure created by two powerful, opposing forces:
I need computers.
I don't trust computers.
When these conditions are forced to coexist, an internal conflict arises.
We depend on technology to function, yet at the slightest sign of error, the machines become targets of our anger and distrust.
Let's see how this condition manifests itself.
Damn computers
You are a very important person with important things to do. Your importance requires that you travel a lot to see other important people, so you can do important things together.
A meeting in Las Vegas requires that you be there, rarin' to go, at 9 a.m.
It is absolutely essential that you be there. This will be the most important thing you have ever done.
No problem.
Your secretary talks to the travel agency, takes care of all your travel needs and presents you with a neat, prepackaged itinerary.
Computerized airline reservations. Car rental. Hotel reservations. Credit card authorization.
Everything is handled.
You need to be in Vegas. To do this, you need computers.
Condition one of Binary Schizophrenia is met.
You arrive at the gate ten minutes before departure, carrying a bulging briefcase and an expensive leather garment bag.
First class is the only way to go: a big seat and a drink in hand before takeoff.
But wait.
Your seat is occupied.
Two airline tickets with duplicate seat assignments.
Damn computers.
The gate manager can't figure it out. Since the other gentleman arrived first, he gets the seat.
The flight is full. Nobody will trade seats with you.
You eventually make it to Las Vegas, but hours later than planned, after a miserable connection through Chicago.
Worst of all? No first class.
Damn computers.
The good news is that the car rental company is open all night. You're tired, but looking forward to the drive to your hotel in a Jaguar convertible.
"What do you mean you never got the reservation?"
"Our computers were down for a while," the young lady explains. "And I guess the records got a little screwed up."
But don't worry. They still have cars.
A couple of Volkswagen Vanagons and a selection of Yugos.
A Yugo?
For an important meeting?
One long, embarrassing, limoless hour later, you begrudgingly choose the bright yellow Yugo because it's the only one without red and orange flames painted on its side and hood.
Damn computers.
You don't trust 'em.
Condition two of Binary Schizophrenia has been met.
At least Caesar's will treat you right.
"I'm sorry, sir, there must have been some mistake. We just don't have any record of your reservation and we just don't have any rooms. You see, there's a computer convention in town."
Damn computer convention.
By 3:30 a.m., Caesar's has found you a room a few blocks down the strip.
The rates are $17 for every three hours.
Cash only.
Damn computers.
But you made it.
Nine o'clock. Your important meeting with important people.
The secretary is very pretty and congenial, but you sense something amiss.
"I'm sorry, sir, I guess you didn't get the message. That meeting was moved to Tuesday, next week."
Shock. Rage. Denial. Disbelief. Fury.
Heavy sigh.
"Why wasn't I called?"
You pull out your personal communicator.
The display flashes:
ERROR 21 NO SERVICE AVAILABLE
Damn phones.
Damn computers.
Approximation anxiety: When machines replace judgment
Such a chain of crises is thankfully rare, but most of us have experienced similar detours.
We can readily appreciate the increasing panic that comes from being out of control.
We have an inherent need for computers, yet at the slightest sign of error, they instantly become targets of our anger.
The computer is wrong.
The computer must have goofed.
We've all heard the excuses.
The airline captain announces that maintenance needs to replace a backup computer.
Your stockbroker says the sell order never made it through because the computers were overloaded.
Your bank manager explains that an error will take days to resolve.
The grocery checkout scanners aren't working.
The number you have dialed is experiencing difficulty. Please try again later.
And then there are the clerks whose voices merely echo what their computers tell them.
"But the computer says ..."
Arguing with a computer is about as useless as teaching Congress how to spell "balanced budget."
Our Binary Schizophrenia isn't limited to business. It creeps into our psyches every day.
It's what I call Approximation Anxiety.
How do you tell time?
Are you one of those who responds to "Got the time?" with "It's two thirty-seven, seventeen seconds," or do you prefer "Quarter of three?"
Computers have forced us to speak digital instead of human.
Digital interfaces have trained us to expect extraordinary precision, even when that precision serves little practical purpose.
You used to buy a pound of meat. Now you receive 1.03 pounds.
I don't mean to imply that accuracy is bad. It certainly is a boon.
But as a result of our heavy reliance on digital information, we are losing our ability to discriminate.
Can you recognize that if you enter 20 × 26 into your calculator and get an answer of 620, the answer is wrong?
You trust your calculator for an instant answer, but can you still approximate an answer in your head?
What about spreadsheets?
We've all spent hours working on a complex budget or financial analysis, only to discover that one error has thrown off hundreds or thousands of calculations.
Far too many of us rely exclusively on what the computer says.
Damn computers.
Humans are essentially fuzzy in their logic.
Our eyes don't tell us that a tree is exactly 376.5 yards away. We might say it's a quarter-mile or a thousand feet away.
Both are wrong, but useful approximations.
The computer is exact.
And when computer answers don't match our expectations, what do we do?
We bring out a calculator to double-check.
If the calculator agrees with the computer, we shrug and accept the result.
If the answers differ, we enter the numbers again.
Not many of us reach for a pencil and rely upon our own brains.
We have the need to trust computers.
If we didn't trust them, at least to a certain extent, we couldn't get much done.
When trust collapses, the attack succeeds
Binary Schizophrenia extends into corporate America's public relations as well.
Few companies admit they've suffered a computer break-in or become victims of computer crime.
The potential public relations fallout is simply too radical to consider.
Imagine that the fictional Big Bank of Los Angeles has been living a charmed life.
Other banks have suffered computer break-ins, fraudulent transactions and software failures.
But so far, nothing has happened to Big Bank.
Until one day.
Customers receive their monthly statements, and their balances are wrong.
Tens of thousands of confused and angry customers find themselves short substantial amounts of money.
Others discover unexpected deposits and wonder whether they can capitalize on the bank's mistake.
The bank is inundated with telephone calls.
Teller lines snake into the streets.
The media gets wind of what's happening and starts asking questions.
Questions the bank doesn't want asked because there are no answers yet.
Management commandeers every computer expert it can find.
"What happened? No, don't tell me, just fix it."
By the end of the day, there are still no answers.
Records have been corrupted. Restoring accurate information will require thousands of hours of manual reconstruction.
What will the bank tell its customers?
Then comes the worst imaginable scenario.
Customers demand their money.
In droves.
A run on the bank.
A bank's worst nightmare.
No bank, and no business for that matter, can stomach the idea of admitting such problems outside its cozy little boardrooms.
Yet a crisis of this magnitude cannot remain secret.
It's the equivalent of an electronic meltdown.
A private computer Chernobyl.
All systems No-Go.
The information warrior exploits our distrust
The Information Warrior counts on corporate America's Binary Schizophrenia as a weapon just as much as he uses and abuses the technology itself.
He knows that stability is an illusion, a perception of reality that may or may not have any true substance.
He can take a bank, business or small government that isn't shaky in the least and manipulate its information to his advantage.
He can create the perception of instability by using networks and news services to leak, spread or alter information obtained from the target.
The Information Warrior will massage that new perception into a new reality.
Once people hear that a bank might be shaky, they withdraw their money to avoid being victimized.
The bank then actually becomes shaky.
Which is exactly what the Information Warrior wanted to achieve.
The attack doesn't necessarily require the destruction of a computer system.
It can succeed by undermining the confidence of the people who depend on that system.
Our dependence on technology becomes a vulnerability.
Our distrust becomes a weapon.
And the Information Warrior understands both.
Next in the series: Winn Schwartau on Digital Addiction and Cyber Risk. In Part 2 of Information Warfare, Vol. 1: REVISITED, Schwartau explores how society's growing dependence on computers has made technological disruption more dangerous and how attackers continue to exploit the fear, confusion and loss of control that follow.
