Cyber War Will Not Take Place cuts through the hype and takes a fresh look at cyber security. Thomas Rid argues that the focus on war and winning distracts from the real challenge of cyberspace: non-violent confrontation that may rival or even replace violence in surprising ways.
"This revelatory and dramatic history of disinformation traces the rise of secret organized deception operations from the interwar period to contemporary internet troll farms. We live in the age of disinformation -- of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm. More than four months before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was "carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign" to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new. The story of modern disinformation begins with the post-Russian Revolution clash between communism and capitalism, which would come to define the Cold War. In Active Measures, Rid reveals startling intelligence and security secrets from materials written in more than ten languages across several nations, and from interviews with current and former operatives. He exposes the disturbing yet colorful history of professional, organized lying, revealing for the first time some of the century's most significant operations -- many of them nearly beyond belief. A White Russian ploy backfires and brings down a New York police commissioner; a KGB-engineered, anti-Semitic hate campaign creeps back across the Iron Curtain; the CIA backs a fake publishing empire, run by a former Wehrmacht U-boat commander, that produces Germany's best jazz magazine. Rid tracks the rise of leaking, and shows how spies began to exploit emerging internet culture many years before WikiLeaks. Finally, he sheds new light on the 2016 election, especially the role of the infamous "troll farm" in St. Petersburg as well as a much more harmful attack that unfolded in the shadows. Active Measures takes the reader on a guided tour deep into a vast hall of mirrors old and new, pointing to a future of engineered polarization, more active and less measured -- but also offering the tools to cut through the deception."-- Provided by publisher
This book explores how the rise of insurgencies and the Web pressures modern armies to adapt, highlighting the different ways insurgents and counterinsurgents utilize new media platforms in irregular conflicts.
A sweeping exploration of man's relationship with machines, and the inventions and myths that shape our world. As lives offline and online merge even more, it is easy to forget how we got here. Rise of the Machinesreclaims the spectacular story of cybernetics, a control theory of man-and-machine and one of the twentieth century's pivotal ideas. Springing from the febrile mind of mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II, the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of seductive myths of cyborgs, cyberculture, and cyberspace. Wiener's scheme slowly transformed computers from machines of assured destruction to engines of brilliant utopias. Cybernetics, in turn, triggered blissful cults and martial gizmos, The Whole Earth Catalog, and the U.S. Air Force's foray into virtual space. It continues to fuel anarchists and cyberwarriors today. Drawing on unpublished sources including interviews with hippies, anarchists, sleuths, and spies, Rise of the Machinesoffers an unparalleled perspective into our anxious embrace of technology.
Sind wir auf dem Weg in eine neue Cyberwelt? Vernetzte Haushaltsgeräte und selbstfahrende Autos könnten bald alltäglich sein, ebenso wie permanentes Lifelogging und Maschinen, die unsere Gedanken lesen. Wie kam es dazu? Maschinen sind nicht nur Ersatz für unsere Muskelkraft geworden, sondern unverzichtbare Begleiter, denen wir sogar das Denken überlassen. Kontrollieren wir noch unsere Maschinen, oder kontrollieren sie uns bereits? In einer spannenden Kulturgeschichte der Kybernetik schildert Thomas Rid, international renommierter Sicherheitsexperte, die bemerkenswerte Entwicklung dieser zentralen Idee des 20. Jahrhunderts. Sie begann in den Trümmern des Zweiten Weltkriegs und nährte weitreichende Mythen über eine digital vernetzte Zukunft – von psychedelischen Entdeckungsreisen in den künstlichen Raum hinter dem Bildschirm bis hin zu automatisierter Flugabwehr, bewaffneten Cyborgs und aggressiver Datenspionage. Rids faszinierende Darstellung unserer gespaltenen Haltung zum Netz stützt sich auf neue Quellen und zahlreiche Interviews mit Althippies, Krypto-Anarchisten, Polizeiermittlern und Nachrichtendiensten. Thomas Rid, aufgewachsen in Aach, forscht und lehrt seit 2011 am Department of War Studies am King's College London und hat zuvor zehn Jahre in führenden Think Tanks in Berlin, Paris, Washington und Jerusalem gearbeitet.
Der Politikwissenschaftler Thomas Rid ist sich sicher: Ein Cyberkrieg findet nicht statt. Den bisher dokumentierten Cyberattacken fehlen die zielgerichtete Gewalt gegen Menschen und die brutale Zerstörung, die untrennbar mit einem Krieg verbunden sind. Beruhigt zurücklehnen können wir uns dennoch nicht. Denn Thomas Rid macht auch klar, dass aus dem Cyberspace durchaus reale Gefahren wie Spionage, Sabotage und Subversion drohen. Kenntnisreich und spannend erzählt er von Spionageangriffen, von Sabotageakten und von Versuchen, mithilfe der Informationstechnologie Regierungen zu destabilisieren und Umstürze einzuleiten. Wir müssen begreifen, wer vom Mythos Cyberwar profitiert. Und wir müssen definieren, welchen Gefahren wir wirklich ausgesetzt sind, um den Sicherheitsanforderungen gut vorbereitet begegnen zu können.