Cyber-CI continued
Technology in CI remains primarily defensive. In his presentation, “Cyber-Counterintelligence – Just-in-Time Security in Today’s Agile IT Architecture”, Michael Thies argues that personal behavior adapting to technological innovations is more dangerous change than increasingly savvy cyberthreats. Based on changes in observed and reported behavior in relation to technology use, his perspective promotes two main aspects: distributed presence and learned covert behavior. Distributed presence is the expansion of propinquity through interpersonal interaction through wireless communication means or in the virtual world. For example, the increase and success of internet dating companies and the proliferation of cellular telephones and interactive video games reveal that people expect to build relationships through non-traditional venues. The idea that interpersonal relationships are initiated and maintained without two people ever physically meeting may be odd; however, it is a collective trend. This may be a future implication for CI safeguards as it will need to defend against these surreptitious intruders.
Concurrently, learned covert behavior is being passively taught to younger generations and is reinforced by instant messaging applications. Instant messaging services are used by all ages; and in a naturally innocent effort to avoid parental monitoring, children have created ‘secret’ messages to notify their counterpart that they are being observed. For example, ‘Parent Over Shoulder’ (POS) does not look much different from ‘Laughing Outloud’ (LOL) to someone who does not understand the code. The ability to communicate and act stealthy when being observed is being learned very young. In applications or even in on-line chat rooms, there is now an option to ‘go off the record’ as means to avoid having conversations inscribed, or to speak away from others. While Americans tend to be more naïve and unassuming, this new learning curve may later reveal trends that society is increasing its covert capabilities.
These developments require further investigation into whether human behaviors differ between the real world and virtual world. An example is a person who would never shoplift, because it is bad, but downloads free music without any thought. And has our society changed so much that these offenses are considered comparable to the general population? Likewise, are their other scenarios in which it seems acceptable to do something in the virtual world that is considered illegal in the real world? While these are issues which require more study, CI may begin to focus less on physical threats introduced by technology and start to examine these concealed treats. If these behaviors and trends continue, they should be viewed as a potential insider threat for which current internal safeguards should be adapted to accommodate, but still maintain oversight of, this evolving culture.