Is the Tech World Now 'Central' to Foreign Policy? (wired.com) 41
Wired interviews America's foreign policy chief, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, about U.S. digital polices, starting with a new "cybersecurity bureau" created in 2022 (which Wired previously reported includes "a crash course in cybersecurity, telecommunications, privacy, surveillance, and other digital issues.")
Look, what I've seen since coming back to the State Department three and a half years ago is that everything happening in the technological world and in cyberspace is increasingly central to our foreign policy. There's almost a perfect storm that's come together over the last few years, several major developments that have really brought this to the forefront of what we're doing and what we need to do. First, we have a new generation of foundational technologies that are literally changing the world all at the same time — whether it's AI, quantum, microelectronics, biotech, telecommunications. They're having a profound impact, and increasingly they're converging and feeding off of each other.
Second, we're seeing that the line between the digital and physical worlds is evaporating, erasing. We have cars, ports, hospitals that are, in effect, huge data centers. They're big vulnerabilities. At the same time, we have increasingly rare materials that are critical to technology and fragile supply chains. In each of these areas, the State Department is taking action. We have to look at everything in terms of "stacks" — the hardware, the software, the talent, and the norms, the rules, the standards by which this technology is used.
Besides setting up an entire new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy — and the bureaus are really the building blocks in our department — we've now trained more than 200 cybersecurity and digital officers, people who are genuinely expert. Every one of our embassies around the world will have at least one person who is truly fluent in tech and digital policy. My goal is to make sure that across the entire department we have basic literacy — ideally fluency — and even, eventually, mastery. All of this to make sure that, as I said, this department is fit for purpose across the entire information and digital space.
Wired notes it was Blinken's Department that discovered China's 2023 breach of Microsoft systems. And on the emerging issue of AI, Blinken cites "incredible work done by the White House to develop basic principles with the foundational companies." The voluntary commitments that they made, the State Department has worked to internationalize those commitments. We have a G7 code of conduct — the leading democratic economies in the world — all agreeing to basic principles with a focus on safety. We managed to get the very first resolution ever on artificial intelligence through the United Nations General Assembly — 192 countries also signing up to basic principles on safety and a focus on using AI to advance sustainable development goals on things like health, education, climate. We also have more than 50 countries that have signed on to basic principles on the responsible military use of AI. The goal here is not to have a world that is bifurcated in any way. It's to try to bring everyone together.
Second, we're seeing that the line between the digital and physical worlds is evaporating, erasing. We have cars, ports, hospitals that are, in effect, huge data centers. They're big vulnerabilities. At the same time, we have increasingly rare materials that are critical to technology and fragile supply chains. In each of these areas, the State Department is taking action. We have to look at everything in terms of "stacks" — the hardware, the software, the talent, and the norms, the rules, the standards by which this technology is used.
Besides setting up an entire new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy — and the bureaus are really the building blocks in our department — we've now trained more than 200 cybersecurity and digital officers, people who are genuinely expert. Every one of our embassies around the world will have at least one person who is truly fluent in tech and digital policy. My goal is to make sure that across the entire department we have basic literacy — ideally fluency — and even, eventually, mastery. All of this to make sure that, as I said, this department is fit for purpose across the entire information and digital space.
Wired notes it was Blinken's Department that discovered China's 2023 breach of Microsoft systems. And on the emerging issue of AI, Blinken cites "incredible work done by the White House to develop basic principles with the foundational companies." The voluntary commitments that they made, the State Department has worked to internationalize those commitments. We have a G7 code of conduct — the leading democratic economies in the world — all agreeing to basic principles with a focus on safety. We managed to get the very first resolution ever on artificial intelligence through the United Nations General Assembly — 192 countries also signing up to basic principles on safety and a focus on using AI to advance sustainable development goals on things like health, education, climate. We also have more than 50 countries that have signed on to basic principles on the responsible military use of AI. The goal here is not to have a world that is bifurcated in any way. It's to try to bring everyone together.
No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, we're seeing that the line between the digital and physical worlds is evaporating, erasing. We have cars, ports, hospitals that are, in effect, huge data centers. They're big vulnerabilities.
Yeah, about that ... hospitals especially really need better fallback workflows for when those systems go down. Or to at least have some fallback workflows all all.
This gets very painfully illustrated during ransomware incidents. Shut down "the system" and it's like a bomb went off. Or lots of bombs, since it affects every location.
Re:No kidding (Score:5, Informative)
And it gets more painful because greed and stupidity leads to lack of preparation and lack of good IT security. This has to stop. When, for example, a hospital goes down due to ransomware, and stays down, it has to be asked who screwed up to make that happen. And then there have to be personal consequences. Half-assing does not cut it anymore these days.
Limited Liability. (Score:2)
And it gets more painful because greed and stupidity leads to lack of preparation and lack of good IT security. This has to stop. When, for example, a hospital goes down due to ransomware, and stays down, it has to be asked who screwed up to make that happen. And then there have to be personal consequences. Half-assing does not cut it anymore these days.
So, you wanna whole-ass it, eh? Would a car maker find a willing CEO if that CEO was personally responsible for every car defect and recall? Every car death? Personally open to civil and criminal punishment? No way in hell would anyone take that job. Would you?
Why do you think LLCs were created? Even the small business owner, can’t afford anything less than limited liability these days.
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No way in hell would anyone take that job. Would you?
In 2023, the median pay for CEOs in the S&P 500 was $16.3 million
I don't think OP is talking about criminal convictions here so let's just keep things in perspectivehere.
I personally am a bit weary of businesses holding everyone else hostage from their own negligence or greed. Oh "You can't raise taxes, companies will leave!" Oh yeah, to where? EU? China? Middle East? Good luck with that.
"You can't put any more responsibility of the C-Suite, they won't want to do that job!" Ok, then they can go find
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For thinks like not having IT Risk management, not having prepared BCM and DR and not at least trying to implement the state-of-the-art in IT security, yes, I am talking about criminal convictions when any type of critical infrastructure (like hospitals) is affected. The damage done to society more than justifies this.
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That is just bullshit. Try to come up with some non-crap pseudo-arguments and then try again.
Also, FYI, it is already done in regulated environments that way. Do you see insurances or banks not getting CEOs? Right. The thing is these organizations a) usually do not fall for ransomware except in a limited way and b) they usually recover pretty fast. Why? Because of that personal liability. Obviously, making a mistake can happen and does not send you to prison. But willfully and knowingly ignoring the state-o
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Obviously, making a mistake can happen and does not send you to prison. But willfully and knowingly ignoring the state-of-the-art does and should.
Tell me which “state of the art” peddler the CEO should put their career on. Otherwise, maybe we pretending your crystal ball is any better than the one the FUD pimp is selling the CEO.
Now you know how hard it is to choose which problem should send a CEO to prison in the not-if-but-when world of vulnerabilities. Hell, Cloudstrike proved the fucking cybersecurity solution can become the problem.
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That comment just shows you have no clue how these things work. Seriously.
Wired - Talking their own book (Score:2)
Wired, magazine which benefits from more technology, questioning whether or not more focus on technology is important....
This is known as "talking their own book" in investment banking - recommending something in an apparently unbiased way which the speaker profits from.
Like asking ESPN whether or not football is beneficial to society.
https://news.ycombinator.com/i... [ycombinator.com] ...investment banking: "talking his own book." A trader is talking their own book when the superficially neutral view they give of the market
And a lot of technology is democrat communist. (Score:1)
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Amen brother! I'm writing this to tell you how comfortable my official Trump sneakers are. As a matter of fact I'll be proudly wearing them to the bank on Monday to cash in my official Trump Bucks. https://www.forbes.com/sites/t... [forbes.com]
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Modern hospitals are a bit scary in how IT reliant they are. I had a surgery a few years ago and every time medication is administered the nurses had to scan bar codes and make confirmations on cart loaded computers. Even the wifi going down would grind that process to a halt. Oh and this hospital has "non profit" status and is also the biggest employer in the state, meaning they hardly pay any taxes.
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That "scanning all the medicine before they use it" is partially lawsuit prevention. Not entirely, as they have expanded it into places where it would just affect what data got placed in which patient's records, but that's where it started. Somehow once the system got started people started using it wherever it seemed reasonable. It increases the accuracy of the records AND helps prevent lawsuits.
But, yes, it does mean that the standard process only works as long as everything is up.
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In an ideal world, hospitals would have data centers at each location, then using filesystem/SAN replication and database replication to ensure consistency of data, perhaps using timestamps on transactions. If one location went down and came up, other locations would be able to roll forward change logs, bringing that location up to the current transaction level. Backups would be done at a dedicated recovery site, with a database replica dedicated to be snapshotted and replicated, with archive logs kept.
Ho
So what is new? (Score:3)
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The painful difference to the "Western World" is that it no longer has the dominance that it has enjoyed for the last few hundred years.
Yep. Crappy, insecure and unreliable tech everywhere. The west does not know how to do it anymore. Looks like the beginning of a really big shift to me.
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"The west does not know how to do it anymore." Do what anymore? The world has never seen anything like the current crop of tech gizmos, so you are comparing apples to what, precisely?
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Is this a serious question?
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Not always. During much of history folks that fought generally had equivalent technical skills. Every once in awhile something new would come along, like horse-drawn chariots, but those were rare events.
Neuralink now!! (Score:2)
Entirely useless (Score:2)
This one says it all - "We also have more than 50 countries that have signed on to basic principles on the responsible military use of AI."
A meagre 50 countries, that probably have no military assets to speak of.
Re:Entirely useless (Score:5, Insightful)
useless? this is propaganda for the democrats by aggrandizing blinken and fearmonegring, the classic method of inventing the problem and presenting the solution. the interviewer (editor of politico) gives blinken his cue by dropping that his new department discovered a june 2023 intrusion on industrial systems. which is ofc not true, that was discovered by microsoft, but blinken enthusiastically boasts and plays along with the lie, acting like he knows squat and actually worries about security threats.
comically, that intrusion prompted a "cyberguide" released by a host of departments (including blinken's) which actually reckon that it was uncovered by "private sector partners". that report was also trumpeted by slashdot at the time (and also posted by beauhd) and made a huge deal about an actually pretty trivial case of industrial intrusion with cringely low quality reporting (for state agencies standards) and citing 29 times that the origin was a "prc-state-sponsored" actor without providing a single piece of reasonable evidence. the report: https://media.defense.gov/2023... [defense.gov]
so, this horseshit is just not targeted at what you think it is and i wouldn't automatically dismiss as useless, because it's pretty stunning what crazy shit the american public is capable of believing ...
Entirely dangerous. (Score:2)
This one says it all - "We also have more than 50 countries that have signed on to basic principles on the responsible military use of AI."
A meagre 50 countries, that probably have no military assets to speak of.
Or, you’re reading that backwards.
How about the top 50 countries with military assets to speak of (and be concerned about), being the only ones making statements about their responsible military use. Those without a military, have no point in making such a statement.
Personally I more read that as a dire warning, 50 countries are already posturing their public statements for when the killer drone goes “oops” and they can define how “necessary” the technology is, which of cours
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What's the enforcement mechanism?
Even if I were to grant that everyone signing meant it seriously, managements change all the time.
Fake news (Score:3)
whether it's AI, quantum, microelectronics, biotech, telecommunications. They're having a profound impact, and increasingly they're converging and feeding off of each other.
Telecommunications, in this context, means companies such as Huawei. However, it also means the ability to disguise your message via patsies who disseminate your lies to others [newsweek.com]. Such as we witnessed by right-wing podcasters [thewrap.com] who are now furiously backpedaling from everything they said because it's been exposed [justice.gov] it was a Russian covert op they were promulgating.
The conservative influencer said that his podcast was licensed by Tenet Media after it already existed, adding, “Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show.” However, in a recently resurfaced clip, Pool is seen saying, “Ukraine is the enemy of this country,” adding that the U.S. “should apologize to Russia.”
Followed up by the traditional:
“That being said, we still do not know what is true as these are only allegations,” Pool said, looking to cast some doubt on the indictment’s contents.
The ease with which lies and propaganda are able to spread is directly correlated to tech. There are so many channels available that it is impossible to find them all. That said, this also makes it that much easier to spread the truth [yahoo.com] to the people.
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The ease with which lies and propaganda are able to spread is directly correlated to tech. There are so many channels available that it is impossible to find them all.
That's not even remotely the problem, nor is it even remotely true. It has never been easier to find them all because there have never before been search engines and SEO. They are trying to be found, and there is unparalleled access to the information they are putting out. It's easier on both ends!
The problem is that we live under fascism, which Mussolini said outright was more correctly called rule by corporation. The corporations do not want to be limited, so they have bought laws (they wrote them, they h
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I see you hit all the Russian talking points. Congrats. How much they paying you?
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I see you hit all the Russian talking points. Congrats. How much they paying you?
I see you are doing exactly what the Russians (and by extension the Republicans) do, accuse others of doing what you are doing. How much are they paying you, tovarisch?
You wouldn't recognize a leftist position if it threw a brick at you.
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The conservative influencer said that his podcast was licensed by Tenet Media after it already existed, adding, “Never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show.” However, in a recently resurfaced clip, Pool is seen saying, “Ukraine is the enemy of this country,” adding that the U.S. “should apologize to Russia.”
Okay, the logician in me wants to know how the one proves the other.
That he said something that you (and most of your countrymen) disagree with, does not prove that someone else had editorial control over what he said. (They may have, but the one does not prove the other.)
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True, there is no evidence that he explicity knew.
However it does beg credulity to think a person in their position, who very well knows what general rates for youtube content is to collect 100k per video on a site where the videos are getting hundreds to thousands of views, all from a client who demanded
No sponsorships or promototions
No exlcusivity rights
No performance metrics or KPI's
That smalls all kinds of fishy. And also his defense was that he knew Lauren Chen for a long time so either he is so dense
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"The truth" is usually less exciting, so it's more difficult to spread. Lies are specifically crafted to find ears eager to hear them.
but be sure to fuck Elon,amirite? (Score:2)
""incredible work done by the White House to develop basic principles with the foundational companies." ...As long as they censor what we tell them to. And we need to make doubly sure we exclude that Musk guy as much as we can, sonofabitch blew up one of our best ways to control the narrative.
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Elon claimed he would buy twitter to bring back freedom of speech https://www.axios.com/2022/04/... [axios.com] but in practice he reguarly interferes with the process.
Like government requests for example: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/29... [cnn.com]
He has decided the word cisgender is a slur and will restrict any account who utters the word. https://www.advocate.com/news/... [advocate.com] But racist content appearing next to paid advertisements isn't somewhow a problem.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/w... [cbsnews.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Some oth
No, tech is not central to US foreign policy. (Score:2)
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What's the point of a wall when a foreigner can hold a US work-from-home job by faking credentials online - sure sounds like foreign policy is needed there.
What's the point of a wall when a foreigner can break into government and citizen computers demanding a ransom - sure sounds like foreign po
(*that was the evil Kirk from "Mirror, Mirror"*) (Score:2)
Re: that sig (Score:2)
"If you're trapped in a hole, you might want to put the shovel down." is usually wrong. What you want to do is start digging at an upwards slant. (Carefully, so you don't collapse too much all at once.)
Department of the Surveillance State (Score:1)
Always has been.. or should've been (Score:2)
Tech always has been core to national security - from the moment Ugg developed a weapon, contrivance or shenanigan to beat Igg way back in the literal Stone Age.
This is why the Dreadnaught arms race happened, this is why the Missile Gap wasn't all a scam -- you cannot allow your enemy to gain a technological leg over you. And if it happens, you need a way to counter it. Be it jets, ICBMs, cyberwarfare, psy-ops -- whatever it is, you have to be more devious than your enemy. This requires unconventional th
Real purpose of digital polices (Score:2)