Society, Technology And National Security – Analysis

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fba03f533975a5856ad6db22b3176bbe Society, Technology And National Security – Analysis

As Asian society becomes increasingly and well interwoven with technology, a new federal security challenge may emerge which Island will have to contend with.

By Frenchman Vasu and Benjamin Ang*

Technology take convenience even as it exposes intercourse to a wide array of risks. Distinct national security issues Island may face will emanate from the gospel that our lives have amalgamate with technology. Smart phones enjoy become an extension of our brains, our implement watch our behavior as much as we picket them, and social media force what we believe to be true.

This discipline genie can neither be put back into the flask nor should we attempt to be Luddites and forefend progress. As such, it behooves us to be knowledgeable of the possible dangers so that we can return steps to mitigate them.

Straining of Perception

The viral spread of affected news and disinformation online gained global notoriety in this year’s display-factual US Presidential Election drive. A major state actor (Ussr) has been accused of manipulating attitude and decision-making to create dissension, uncertainty, and doubt, to achieve its civil objectives – the same tactics it has been accused of employing for Estonia and Ukraine in the near preceding.

This is worrying because any over-the-counter state, or terrorist group, can well adopt these tactics anonymously in locale where they feel tactfulness would be ineffective and all-out war would be too pricey. Moreover, the tactics are also handy to cybercriminals to exploit for profit.

Piece propaganda and psychological operations are old manoeuvre of information warfare, social media number have amplified their stretch exponentially today, as each aggroup self-selects and trusts its own communication, bypassing (and often rejecting) censorious peer review, and supporting their own biases.

In these assembly, teams of ‘trolls’ – malicious people acting as group members – accept completely bypassed mainstream media aqueduct to create online persona, statue, messages, videos, comments and operations that spread disinformation. These ‘trolls’ can be submit-sponsored, or profit-driven (champion fake news websites make substantial revenues from on-line advertisements), or even potentially unnaturally intelligent chatbots.

In addition, diverse social media platforms and look engines use computer programs and algorithms to filtrate what news posts or check results we see, generally to show us data which coheres with what we bear liked before. This exacerbates the eventuality by creating filter bubbles or reiteration chambers where conspiracy theories succeed and facts can be dismissed. German Premier Angela Merkel called them out this yr for this lack of transparency that “distorts representation”.

Facebook is now trying to combat the faker news plague. But many, much in technology-savvy Singapore, even do not recognise that their Facebook info feeds and Google searches established them the most popular outcome, not necessarily the most truthful or faithful ones.

Beyond Disinformation

Disinformation strategy are sometimes accompanied by cyberattacks, affection the breach of the Democratic National Pattern email servers this gathering, or the persistent low-level attacks on Esthonia’s ministries, banks, and media in the preceding.

As the Internet connectivity and mass transportation breakdowns this year reminded us how yet Singaporeans rely on technology in day-after-day life, we wonder if our highly-machine-accessible citizens, used to efficiency and firmness, may be ill-equipped to deal with a sluggardly drip degradation of services, chiefly if accompanied with fake facts campaigns sowing discontent.

All the more without cyberattacks, opportunistic foe can exploit societal changes with impostor news. As the Fourth Industrial Gyration continues at pace in our technologically goaded society, with artificial word and automation replacing human endeavor, many blue and white leash jobs may be eliminated forever. As a order, we need to ensure that economically displaced humans are kept meaningfully engaged, lest they incline vulnerable to misinformation campaigns promoting xenophobia, extremism and scapegoating.

Nonindustrial Resilience

Since attempts to spreading fake news cannot be avoided, a extravagant cyber wall cannot be created to Safeguard us from every cyberattack, and the replacement to society brought about by expeditious-paced technological change cannot be obstructed, the best solution is to develop recoil all through society to mitigate these defy.

At the individual level, resilience can be institute through the learning of new enhanced expertise of media literacy and critical reasoning to deal with the new deluge of dirt. These are skills enabling Singaporeans to both recognise between truth and falsehood on-line and to avoid contributing to the spread of prevarication and distorted information.

At the community even, we can build our cyber resilience by breeding to respond to attacks, just as we change fire drills and emergency pierce today. At the industry level, bey maintaining robust cybersecurity amplitude, businesses can build resilience by participation to respond to breaches, and by maintaining patronage systems that can be called upon in present of emergency.

Finally, at the state exact, the government plays the key role of chieftain coordinator to encourage the development of elasticity within society towards these new public security challenges. Overall, the common and technological challenges of the future cannot be avoided, and should sure not be feared, but should be prepared for.

Frenchman Vasu PhD is Deputy Head of the Heart of Excellence for National Security at the S. Rajaratnam Schoolhouse of International Studies, Nanyang Discipline University, Singapore. Benjamin Ang is Coordinator of the Cybersecurity Syllabus in the same Centre. This appeared earliest in TODAY.

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