One of the things that becomes apparent when delving deeper into issues of cybersecurity is that the basic fear of the other that pervades nations and peoples in this era is so easily transmitted now.
Naturally this requires a little unpacking.
First, we can start with nations, these strange spatial and geographical conventions built off of the echoes of walled kingdoms. These are conventions which disperse in times of expansion, bathing populations around the world into the homo economicus ether, desperately swimming upward into the market fluids which have risen through global trade.
We have found in the course of studying the great wars that in contraction, the nations gel and retract their interpenetrating trade relations. A people, upon finding that it is the nation, that instrument of violence, and not the abstract ideals of human rights, that protect their security and property from the feeding frenzy that is capital accumulation, and so they clamor for the nation.
Of course it turns out that the nation in geographical space is most aggressively sought out by the reactionary, who simultaneously prizes violence, aggression, and ethnic purity, and so becomes the first mover wrapping up a monopoly on the instruments of violence, and points them outwards and inwards towards all others.
And of course all of this is happening again simultaneously and globally, thus accelerating the process towards mutual destruction.
Now we have the issue of Internet connectivity, with its whispy tendrils of worldwide communication, and its increasingly dense and local tendrils of automation and systems administration. All of which is subject to cyber attack at any time by anyone with the skills, hardware, and knowledge.
This category of person is far more expansive than the mere state actor ,which however irresponsible that category has become in general, is at least partially constrained by a feeling of weight by presiding directly over world political affairs.
Out of the nation, arises the commercial activity and eventually the communication infrastructure that becomes universalized through its global reach, while nations remain localized and dedicated to the opacity and autonomy of their Internet-connected regulatory systems, which are rapidly becoming more vulnerable to military and even civilian attack.
These tensions are playing out regularly today. We see an almost daily pitter-patter of cyberattacks, and if you read a serious cybersecurity expert, you will know that these attacks can come from anywhere and happen for any reason, and technically, they are very difficult to pinpoint and illuminate.
However! The cybersecurity industry is not run by serious experts. It is run by opportunists who want contracts and accumulation. And the opportunists know that state actors are increasingly paranoid, and increasingly ignorant of complex technical matters, and unhesitant to worship that which is slick, shiny, and well-marketed, and they are all too happy to take up unsound accusations if they fit into the nation-establishment worldview, and if the accusations come from someone slick, shiny, and well-marketed as well.
There is a constant electrical storm which reaches all nations, within which countless actors for any reason are attacking various commercial and political targets through the Internet. And there is an industry that is fed by cozying up to the paranoid state actors and pointing the finger at the favorite bogeyman, which the state-specific media are all too happy to echo, as they too are fed by access to state actors, sensationalism, and a desire for accumulation.
For now, much of it is heated talk and saber-rattling. But if this is the state of discourse, and if this state of discourse is repeated and establishes conventional truths, and if the talk eventually materializes action, action which is grounded in the discourse set in place by the talk, then well, there you have it. Wonderful.
