JOIN USUkraine’s IT Army – Everyman’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
If you are glued to your TV set or smartphone to keep abreast of the latest news on the Russia-Ukraine war, you are not alone. So is the rest of the world, thanks to Big Tech. Be forewarned, however, that in the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) world of computers, the real news is buried in a sea of misinformation. When this misinformation is disseminated on social media, either purposefully or through sheer ignorance stemming from a lack of critical thinking skills, it can result in significant collateral damage to social, geo-political, and economic structures. Surely, camera footage from photojournalists can capture Russian and Ukrainian tanks and troops battling it out on the ground, but is it capable of recording the much larger war that is being fought in cyberspace – a cyberwar that involves not just Russia and Ukraine but NATO countries as well?
Welcome to World War III, even though the Russia-Ukraine conflict may not be labelled as such. War has been privatised and made hugely profitable by a handful of monopolistic IT and energy companies. Big Tech, which is fuelling the war in cyberspace, is everywhere, grabbing whatever data it can while Big Oil, which fuels armoured vehicles on the ground, is found in just a handful of countries.
What exactly is IT’s role in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war? Though Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple, and Microsoft have curtailed their operations in Russia, the fact that all of these companies are in the forefront aiding Ukraine is not to be missed. The power of these companies has been even more enhanced and legitimised by Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation. Fedorov called on international volunteers to join his ‘IT Army’ to protect Ukraine’s critical structures, conduct cyberattacks against Russian government websites, and provide actionable intelligence by spying on Russian troop movements.
As for Big Oil, whenever you have a country, say Germany, relying on another country, say Russia, for some essential commodity, such as energy, to meet its domestic needs, problems are bound to arise if there is a falling out between the two countries. It is a given that the Russian invasion of Ukraine will significantly alter the European Union’s reliance on Russia for a significant portion of its energy supplies. According to official EU statistics, the EU obtains 47%, 41% and 27% of its natural gas, coal and crude oil requirements, respectively, from Russia. Stopping all energy imports from Russia will pose enormous hardships for all member countries in the EU. Whether the Russia-Ukraine conflict can be resolved without too much bloodshed remains to be seen.
India, too, is dependent on Russia for some of its energy supplies, but it has chosen not to alienate Russia. Since the IT sector in India is wholly dependent on the West for its continued existence, it cannot afford to alienate the West either. Since the prevailing mindset in the West is one of “If you are not with us, you must be against us”, the blowback from defying the sanctions imposed by western nations on Russia is sure to hit India hard in the weeks ahead.
What is this leading up to? Simply put, any individual, disgruntled or not, with rudimentary typing or tapping skills and armed with no more than a laptop or smartphone can now tinker with a piece of information of questionable provenance, tailor it to his or her personal prejudices and spring it to an unsuspecting public, sit back and wait for the fallout to be reported in mainstream and social media. Instead of just any piece of information, it could very well be a sensor element in an electrical power grid or a nuclear reactor. If John Le Carre were still alive, I am not sure what he would make of all of this.
Instead of heeding Prime Minister Modi’s slogan ‘vocal for local’, the captains of Indian industry would rather import and market foreign products, ignoring their own capabilities to generate such products. This is especially true of the IT and medical devices sectors. If the Green Revolution of the 1960s enabled India to become self-sufficient in food, surely…You can fill in the blanks.
Smart cities, anyone?
(The author is a computer scientist, a newly minted Luddite and a cynic.)