Cybersecurity, Technology, and Society

Reflective Writing

Looking back at this semester, I can say without a doubt that some topics really struck me and made me think differently. It was not just about learning facts. It was about seeing things in new ways that actually matter for my future in cybersecurity. To be precise, the three topics that stood out to me were Whistleblowing, Cyberconflict, and Information Warfare. Each one forces me to rethink what responsibility and ethics meant when dealing with sensitive information or protecting systems that people rely on.
The first topic that grabbed my attention was whistleblowing. At the very start of the topic, I will admit, I thought whistleblowing was just someone snitching or being disloyal. Watching the video about Chelsea Manning, and reading Vandekerckhove and Commers’ papers on rational loyalty, totally changed my thinking. I realized that loyalty does not mean just following orders no matter what. It can actually mean standing up for what is right, even if it is uncomfortable. Manning put human life above loyalty to a system that was doing harm. According to the ethics of care, that is the right thing to do. If I were to see something wrong in my professional life, like a company covering a data breach, I hope I remember that real loyalty is about protecting people, not just protecting my employer. My takeaway from this is that loyalty is about caring for others, doing what is right, and not what one is told, even if it means things can get ugly.
Cyberconflict was another huge topic for me. Before this class, I thought of cyberattacks as just hackers stealing credit cards, user’s data, or things of that nature. I did not know much that cyberattacks could be used alongside military actions, at least not the way I read about in “Digital Battlegrounds” and Taddeo’s work. Cyberwar does not have to do physical damage to buildings or cause bloodshed, but it can shut down hospitals, disrupt power grids, and cause real chaos to civilian infrastructures. Using the contractarian view, where one thinks about fairness from the “veil of ignorance,” made me see it differently. If I was just a random citizen in a city, I would not want my hospital computers hacked because two countries were fighting against each other. That is not fair. Cyberattacks can blur the line between military and civilians, and that is scary. As a takeaway for my cybersecurity field, even “clean” cyberattacks still end up having real-world civilian impacts, regardless of legalities; and fairness must be a significant part of our considerations for defending or attacking.
The last topic, information warfare, completely changed how I see modern conflicts. Reading how Russia, China, and Iran manipulate social media trends, made me realize that warfare today is not just bombs, tanks, and destruction on battlefields. Warfare is memes, fake news and videos, influencers all pushing division on the internet. Before, I thought disinformation campaigns were bad but not really a kind of warfare. Now, I can see and understand that they are a different kind of attack; the one that undermines trust and relationships, instead of causing physical destruction. And, what struck me the most was how ethics of care fits into this. If democracy is dependent upon people to trust one another, then trying to fracture that relationship or bond is a serious moral failure. What I took away from this topic is that in the future, I must remember that the field of cybersecurity is more than just technology, it is also about protecting and maintaining the emotional and social connections that hold society together.
Overall, this class made me think about cybersecurity in a way I did not expect. It is not just about firewalls, or protecting computer systems, it is also about loyalty, fairness, caring for other people, and considering the ethical aspect of our actions. As I go into my career, I want to be someone who protects not just systems, but the people who rely on those systems as well.