Civic Cybersecurity
Civic cybersecurity
A political idea that;
- everyone should be secure in their digital lives
- digital security is a democratic construction
- digital security is much more than technical (data and network) security
- a technological society cannot be sustained by a guardian class or commercial interests alone
Civic Cybersecurity encompasses not just technical (device, data and network) security, but social and psychological security of citizens within a digital society.
In a nutshell: We almost exclusively hear about just two stakeholders;
- One is "business"; the corporate world of finance, investments, industry, and markets.
- The other is "government", including political structures, law, military - and in wealthier countries education and healthcare.
Each is important and should be held in balance. But a voice is conspicuously missing. In sheer size it dwarfs the other two interests. It is the end to which the other two exist, but we have forgotten that. It is the voice of the people; those who are governed citizens, workers, customers, voters…
Technology of the workers
In terms of workers, everyone has heard of The Luddites, the skilled machine operators and engineers who opposed the misuse of technology for exploitation in the 19th Century. As lovers of technology they questioned its misapplication for short-term profit.
Back then, profit won out and they were met with armed violence from government mercenaries acting for wealthy industrialists.
Today the issue remains. The question of voice around technology now goes far beyond mere labour relations, since technology fully structures our society.
It will not go away. "AI" and burgeoning digital harms will make democratic technology an ever more pressing issue for government,
Democratic Technology
Markets really have nothing to do with digital technology - how much do you pay for your GMail account?
There remains a massive hole in society, a vital need for people to have fully democratic say in how technology is created and used, which is the project of Free Open Source Software (FOSS).
So that people can vote and access basic services we must have;
- reliable basic networks under public ownership
- people powered, reliable email services
- people powered, reliable basic web hosting services
- confidential (private) communication to confer and democratically organise
Political representatives understand these very basic facts of life, but they have scant knowledge or informed opinions about technology, Instead, for 50 years they've deferred to private companies and allowed the most basic apparatus of state to fall into unreliable hands.
We had hoped that "The Internet" would provide a natural democratic tool for consensual technological advance and peace. It turned instead into a giant engine of surveillance and control, while being an amplifier for crime and corruption.
That is no reason to "give up on technology". Nor to chide business or government. But there is a genuine danger of a super-backlash, uncharted forms of social unrest, fragmentation and misery as "civil cyberwar" and possible collapse.
If the path of technology is set only by conflict between liberal free markets and social authoritarianism we are in trouble. Climate, energy resources, borders, and identity increasingly impact on technology choices. Neither markets nor policy can steer technology safely, nor can they together, not without clearer popular mandates and clear benefits to society.
Yet for the overwhelming majority of ordinary people technology remains something that happens to them, and is imposed upon them without reflection, without consultation. With democracy weakening the benefits, harms and relation to [rights] must be understood on a scale never seen before, through radical new forms of education, research, art, documentary, debate.
Out stab at "Civic Cybersecurity" is one small piece of this bigger struggle.
Read a pre-pandemic [paper] exploring civic cybersecurity as an educational practice.
It matters who owns and controls our computers. Modern technology is an extension of our bodies and being. It matters that we control it. Technology is not a new bargain with either business or government that bypasses social contract.
Despite the power of "social media" to suppress and control superficial thought and opinion the real social factors of technology will not go away and cannot be ignored. Civic cybersecurity offers a possible basis for more effective, mature and joined-up flavour of digital security thinking.
Like Einstein says; technology forces us to choose, we are either in this together or we are at war with one another.