Know technology today, to equip yourself for tomorrow.
Using a unique, visual approach, Gerald Lynch explains the most important tech developments of the modern world – examining their impact on society and how, ultimately, we can use technology to achieve our full potential.
From the driverless transport systems hitting our roads to the nanobots and artificial intelligence pushing human capabilities to their limits, in 20 dip-in lessons this book introduces the most exciting and important technological concepts of our age, helping you to better understand the world around you today, tomorrow and in the decades to come.
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13CYBERSECURITY From stolen passwords to digital battlefields, how can we defend ourselves in the age of cyber warfare?
14BIOMETRICS Could we one day use the unique nature of our bodies to protect our most valued possessions?
15BLOCKCHAIN If we can’t trust each other, can we trust the blockchain? Looking at the digital ledger set to change the world.
16THE AUTONOMOUS ARMY In the combat zones of tomorrow, will autonomous robots ever replace living soldiers?
Understanding how to operate in this vulnerable digital landscape is vital.
If technology opens new doors for us to walk through, it also allows opportunities for criminals to follow. And if technological advancements offer peace and a better standard of living for some people, that’s often thanks to a trickle-down effect from the fruits of military research and warfare.
Whether on a personal or national scale, our increasingly connected lives and infrastructure face a maturing digital threat that is difficult to comprehend, let alone anticipate. Understanding how to operate safely and securely in this vulnerable new landscape is more vital than ever. All the while, the machinery of conventional warfare evolves at speed too, leading to a reliance on remote and autonomous combat units to defend us.
Researchers look to the human body to find novel new ways of protecting the things we wish to secure, while forward-thinking security experts and institutions turn to impressive new encryption methods not only to safeguard our society, but simultaneously to hold those to account who look to undermine and exploit it.
From drones in the sky to keys in our eyes, this next chapter will take a look at the ever-increasing threats our connected world faces, and the technologies being developed to defend it. It will shine a light on the techniques, hardware and machines we’ll need in order to keep ourselves safe in a future world where traditional borders and barriers will lack the authority they once commanded.
CYBERSECURITY
As you sit browsing social media, an invisible war is being waged, built on an arms race in which a line of code may be as dangerous as a nuclear warhead.
The modern world has become so dependent on interconnected computer systems that the physical battlegrounds of old are increasingly being swapped for the no-man’s land of cyberspace. Battles are increasingly digital and clandestine, with hackers targeting the sensitive, vulnerable digital infrastructure that underpins much of today’s society.
It’s no idle threat. With increasing regularity, attacks are crippling targets across the globe. Take the example of the Stuxnet virus, recognized as one of the first weapons in a new era of cyber warfare. It took advantage of zero-day vulnerabilities (digital weaknesses yet to be discovered and patched in a software package) laying dormant in Microsoft’s Windows platform in order to disrupt Iran’s nascent nuclear ambitions at a facility in Natanz. A type of virus known as a worm, capable of replicating itself across networked machines, it spread ferociously and specifically targeted programmable logic controllers – unassuming computers used in industrial installations to automate a number of controls, which in this case destabilized the delicate nuclear processes. By secretly falsifying reactor readouts the Iranian scientists relied upon, the facility was rendered all but useless.
The worm’s transmission? Potentially as simple as having an insider insert a USB thumb stick into a PC. Stuxnet may have been infecting systems for as long as five years before it was identified in 2010, and its reach is still being determined.
All manner of connected and critical infrastructure, services and devices are at risk from these kinds of attack. GPS satellites, land and air traffic control centres, healthcare databases, the electricity grid and nuclear stations are just some of the systems we take for granted that are in need of defence. And that’s before considering the threats posed to future technologies such as networked driverless transport, automated homes and robotic workforces. Understanding how these dangers are developed and deployed is the key to protecting our infrastructure.
Stuxnet came in just one of many forms of cyber attack. It was a worm, but there are also:
01. Phishing attacks Usually distributed through malicious links in emails, these are disguised to look as though they’ve been sent from a trusted source, and can be used to steal user data or install malicious software on a computer.
02. Trojans Taking inspiration from Greek myth, Trojans disguise themselves as legitimate software.
03. Distributed denial of service attacks Otherwise known as DDoS attacks, these flood a network with traffic to overload and disable a system.
A CYBERPEACE TREATY
While there is plenty of investment in offensive cyber techniques, including government security agencies like the UK’s GCHQ and the USA’s NSA, the evolutionary nature of these attacks means that we’ll inevitably be one step behind when it comes to defending against them. With culprits hard to identify and cyber criminality making a mockery of international borders, the jurisdiction of a state and its authority are left fumbling in the dark. What is a proportional response to a cyber strike? What sanctions can be brought down upon the accused should a state player be found guilty of cyber espionage? The rules of engagement have been torn up, the chess pieces scattered. Beyond chastising the phantom perpetrators, no one knows how to react to such events.
To become capable of securing individuals, institutions and states against cyber warfare, new rules must be written, and new codes of conduct established that define the limits and legalities of combat in this new realm. Could nuclear arms treaties guide us through these freshly dug trenches? War, in all its forms, brings sadness and suffering, but an internationally agreed cyber-war peace agreement, e...
