Hybrid Threats and Asymmetric Warfare: What to do? Conference proceeding February 2018

The international security environment has seemingly departed from a post-cold war period of everlasting peace and has instead evolved into a volatile and increasingly grey area of war and peace. Security challenges arising from both hybrid wars and hybrid threats are high on security agendas in Sweden and Europe as well as internationally. However, despite the attention there is a lack of research that addresses how such “new” wars and threats should be handled. While studies do exist on specific issues, a comprehensive approach to how hybrid wars and threats are to be handled is still lacking. This is particularly the case when it comes to the sharing of experiences between states. This workshop constituted a first step towards developing such a comprehensive approach. The workshop’s aim was to be a bridge across disciplinary boundaries as well as between researchers and practitioners within and outside Sweden; integrating each group’s extensive experiences and knowledge into a coherent whole. Besides producing and disseminating new knowledge, the intention of the workshop was to establish a foundation for long-term collaboration; the first step in the creation of a European Network on Hybrid Warfare Capabilities that can work across borders and link state of the art of research and practice. Although mainly a scientific workshop, a number of practitioners were invited, with a mix of presentations by academics and practitioners. This was intended to foster innovative and reflective discussions across the academic-practitioner divide. The workshop also aimed to develop new ideas associated with hybrid threats/warfare in order to facilitate future cooperation These proceedings include a summary of the key points made by the presenters, along with conclusions and policy recommendations derived from the ensuing discussions. Conference programme and a list of abstracts for the papers and presentations can be found in the appendix

From frankenstein to matrix: cultural perceptions of cyborgs

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente.Este trabalho lida com o gênero literário de ficção científica. Combinando os princípios da "Cultural Criticism" e "Reader-Response Criticism," ele discute e interpreta duas narrativas ocidentais: Frankenstein de Mary Shelley e Matrix dos irmãos Wachowski. O trabalho se preocupa com dois aspectos relevantes: (1) a cultura Ocidental esmagando dependência na ciência e tecnologia e (2) o papel das narrativas como um instrumento de ambos apoio e mudança em relação aos valores e verdades propostas pelo discurso dominante ou cultura paradigmática

Scientific Temper: An Arena of Contestation in a Globalized World

There are three conditions that guide this conversation. Firstly, this paper is not an effort to provide a solution to the questions and concerns that have been repeatedly raised by the community of scholars who have worked in the area of Public Understanding of Science (PUS) over the past 30 years. The paper tries to argue that all science communication activities should aim at develop- ing a ‘scientifically tempered society’. Secondly, this paper is a continuation of the keynote address presented at the International Conference on Science Communication, Nancy, France, 2012 (Raza, 2012), and two editorials published in the Journal of Scientific Temper. Thirdly, the paper draws heavily on the Indian experience and history; therefore, any generalization requires careful scrutiny to ensure local applicability

The Trojan Horse in Your Head: Cognitive Threats and How to Counter Them

Vulnerabilities of the human mind caused by the way it is designed to process information have always been exploited in warfare, since the dawn of humanity. History is marked with frequent use of deceits and manipulations over the centuries, with examples ranging from the use of the Trojan Horse to Facebook’s user-profiling. While largely used over time, these tactics, that I call cognitive threats, have not been collectively examined. I hypothesize that they pose a security issue to which prevention strategies on different levels could be successfully applied. The research questions that this study asks are what the characteristics of these cognitive threats, and what specific techniques could be employed to counter them. To respond to them and to contribute to filling the gap in the literature, I describe four case studies that illustrate some of the most common types of cognitive threats in the 21st century - the case with Maria Butina, the case with Russian disinformation, the case with ISIS recruitment, and the case with Cambridge Analytica. Then I analyze them and suggest different approaches that are fit to respond to the contemporary political and psychological features of these cognitive threats. The findings from the study, the policy recommendations, and the additional measures I propose are grouped into six categories: creating alternatives, narrative change, official government statements, legislative measures, education, and awareness

What Makes Them Click? Applying The Rational Choice Perspective To The Hacking Underground

The increasing dependence of modern societies, industries, and individuals on information technology and computer networks renders them ever more vulnerable to attacks on critical IT infrastructures. While the societal threat posed by hackers and other types of cyber-criminals has been growing significantly in the last decade, main-stream criminology has only recently begun to realize the significance of this threat. Cyber-criminology is slowly emerging as a subfield of criminological study and has yet to overcome many of the problems other areas of criminological research have already mastered. Aside from substantial methodological and theoretical problems, cyber-criminology currently also suffers from the scarcity of available data. As a result, scientific answers to crucial questions, such as who exactly the attackers are and why they engage in hacking activities, remain largely fragmentary. The present study begins to fill this remaining gap in the literature. It examines survey data about hackers, their involvement in hacking, their motivations to hack, and their hacking careers. The data for this study was collected during a large hacking convention in Washington D.C. in February 2008. The theoretical framework guiding the analyses is the rational choice perspective (Clarke & Cornish, 1985). Several hypotheses about hackers are derived from the theory and some of its models are transposed into the context of hackers. Results suggest that the rational choice perspective is a viable theory when applied to cyber-criminals. Findings also demonstrate that the creation of more effective countermeasures requires adjustments to our understanding of who hackers really are and why they hack

A theory of unified online identity

People around the world are meeting in places that consist of little more than a touch of some hardware, a dash of electricity, and a pinch of code. As the Internet becomes increasingly incorporated into our lives the subject of online identity becomes increasingly relevant. How are we to conceive of ourselves as selves on the Internet? Is there anything unique or special about the way in which we relate to ourselves in cyberspace? Sherry Turkle answers this question affirmatively, arguing that the Internet is suggestive of a decentered theory of self which ought to make us reconsider our very notion of our identities. In chapter one, Turkle’s position is examined, and I argue that while her encompassing view on online identity presents some incredible insights, in the end it falls short because her argument draws a false conclusion. In chapter two, Christine Korsgaard’s theory of practical identity is taken up as a means of addressing the weakness in Turkle’s theory and, at the same time, salvages the insights revealed in the first chapter. With a theory of unified online identity established, in chapter three it is applied to both show its applicability to case studies and scenarios one may face as they traverse cyberspace, and to explain how it is we can understand our relation to our online selves in a deep sense

Computational Transformation of the Public Sphere : Theories and Case Studies

This book is an edited collection of MA research paper on the digital revolution of the public and governance. It covers cyber governance in Finland, and the securitization of cyber security in Finland. It investigates the cases of Brexit, the 2016 US presidental election of Donald Trump, the 2017 presidential election of Volodymyr Zelensky, and Brexit. It examines the environmental concerns of climate change and greenwashing, and the impact of digital communication giving rise to the #MeToo and Incel movements. It considers how digitilization can serve to emancipate women through ride-sharing, and how it leads to the question of robot rights. It considers fake news and algorithmic governance with respect to case studies of the Chinese social credit system, the US FICO credit score, along with Facebook, Twitter, Cambridge Analytica and the European effort to regulate and protect data usage.Non peer reviewe

Computational Transformation of the Public Sphere: Theories and Cases

This book is an edited collection of original research papers on the digital revolution of the public and governance. It covers cyber governance in Finland, and the securitization of cyber security in Finland. It investigates the cases of Brexit, the 2016 US presidential election of Donald Trump, the 2017 presidential election of Volodymyr Zelensky, and Brexit. It examines the environmental concerns of climate change and greenwashing, and the impact of digital communication giving rise to the #MeToo and Incel movements. It considers how digitilization can serve to emancipate women through ride-sharing, and how it leads to the question of robot rights. It considers fake news and algorithmic governance with respect to case studies of the Chinese social credit system, the US FICO credit score, along with Facebook, Twitter, Cambridge Analytica and the European effort to regulate and protect data usage

Computational transformation of the public sphere : theories and case studies

Computational Transformation of the Public Sphere is the organic product of what turned out to be an effective collaboration between MA students and their professor in the Global Politics and Communication program in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, in the Fall of 2019. The course, Philosophy of Politics and Communication, is a gateway course into this MA program. As I had been eager to conduct research on the impact of new digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) on democratic governance, I saw this course as an opportunity to not only share, but also further develop my knowledge of this topic

Roots of Stability: Arab Civil-Military Relations During Times of Political Crisis

Militaries generally play a vital role in the survival of states, neutralizing both domestic and foreign threats. In addition, during moments of political crisis when political institutions and processes break down, militaries play an integral part of a particular regime’s survival. Each chapter of this study analyzes a critical component of military decision-making and regime survival in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Jordan is the central case study for each chapter. Through the collection of data from interviews with security personnel in Jordan, this study offers an in-depth investigation of civil-military relations in the MENA region. There is a shortage of research on this topic, and this study seeks to fill the gaps in important places in the political science literature. In order to fill these gaps, this study begins by establishing a new and alternative approach to understanding security decision-making called the identity-rationalist model. This new model incorporates notions of identity into cost-benefit analysis. Then the study tests hypotheses on military loyalty, finding that integration of the military into the political economy of a country has the greatest explanatory power for military defection. Finally, this study gives a detailed exploration of Jordanian intelligence services to understand why the institutions are effective at maintaining state stability despite the volatility of the MENA region. Together the three core chapters each contribute to the literature on civil-military relations and understanding the complexity of security forces in the Arab world