Cybersecurity, Technology, and Society

Reflective Writing

Looking back at this semester, I can say without a doubt that there was some really good topics that made me think differently. It was not only about learning facts. It was about seeing things in new ways which actually matter for my future in cybersecurity. To be precise, the three topics that stand out to me were Whistleblowing, Cyberconflict and Information Warfare. Each one makes me question what it was to be responsible and ethical when dealing with sensitive information or protecting systems that people rely on.
The first topic that caught my attention was whistleblowing. At the very beginning of the topic, I will admit, I thought whistleblowing was just someone snitching or being disloyal. Watching the video about the Chelsea Manning case, and reading Vandekerckhove and Commers’ papers on rational loyalty, completely changed my thought process. I realized that loyalty was more that doing what you were ordered to do no matter what. It can actually mean standing up for what is right even if it is uncomfortable. Manning chose human life over loyalty to a system which was hurting people. According to the ethics of care, that is the moral thing to do. If I were to witness something wrong in my professional life, such as a company covering a data breach, I hope I will remember that real loyalty is about protecting people, not 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 simply hackers stealing credit cards and users’ data or something of that nature. I did not know much that cyberattacks could be used along with 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 a mere 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 lines 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 have manipulated social media trends, made me realize that war today is more than bombs, tanks, and destruction on the battlefields. Warfare is memes, fake news & videos, influencers all promoting division on the internet. Before, I thought disinformation campaigns were bad but not really kinds of a warfare. Now, I can see and understand that they are a different kind of attack, the one that destroys the trust and relationships, instead of physical destruction. And, what struck me the most was how ethics of care fits in 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 about technology as well as it is about the protection and maintenance of 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 combines firewalls, or protecting computer systems, with 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 that protects not only systems, but the people who rely upon those systems as well.