Bruce Schneier | Cyberattacks and Survival in a Hyperconnected World
Hidden Forces
Demetri Kofinas
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2018
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 60 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Bruce Schneier, about cyberattacks, cyberwar, and survival in a hyperconnected world.
Cyberattacks constitute one of the most urgent threats facing collective humanity according to Bruce Schneier. History has proven him right. In the summer of 2017, a weapon of cyberwar was dropped onto a world without borders, where the heavy artillery and nuclear warheads that defined the battlelines of the 20th century have been rendered useless. The attack, known as NotPetya, is estimated to have cost its victims ten billion dollars in damages. This is a fraction of the six-hundred billion dollars that the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates to be the annual cost of cybercrime, constituting nearly 1% of global GDP.
Cyberattacks cost the world a fortune, but these costs are remain manageable. Still, they they pass largely unnoticed. The public, lacking context, remains blind to the gathering threat, unable to appreciate the gravity of a cyber 9/11. Until now, cybercrime and cyberterrorism on the Internet has been measured in terms of dollars and cents. Soon, we will be measuring the cost of these cyberattacks in terms of flesh and blood.
The 20th century has seen its share of industrial innovation and forward progress, but for the most part, these changes have been discrete. Things have gotten bigger, faster, and cheaper. Still, no one ever expected a train to become a toaster or a pacemaker to magically transform itself into an aisle of books. The composition of an object – its component parts – did not exist independently of its use case. A key used to open a locker couldn't be repurposed to start a car, nor could a refrigerator open the door to a power plant or to the halls of congress.
In today's world, where everything is a computer, everything is vulnerable. When those things are connected to the Internet, everyone is exposed. Cyberattacks are inevitable, but that doesn't mean that we are defenseless.
This week, on Hidden Forces, Bruce Schneier describes the dangers posed by cyberattacks and how we can learn to survive in spite of them.
Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today's episode of Hidden Forces is made possible by listeners like you. |
| 0:04.6 | For more information about this week's episode or for easy access to related programming |
| 0:10.1 | visit our website at hidden Forces. I.O. select the episode that you're interested in |
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| 0:26.8 | review helps more people find the show and join our amazing community. And with that, please enjoy this week's episode. |
| 0:36.0 | In the summer of 2017, a weapon of war was dropped onto a world without borders |
| 0:46.1 | where the heavy artillery and nuclear warheads that define the battle lines of the |
| 0:51.6 | 20th century had been rendered useless. The attack |
| 0:56.0 | known as not petia is estimated to have cost its victims ten billion dollars in |
| 1:02.2 | damages a fraction of the 600 billion that a recent report for |
| 1:07.0 | the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates as the annual cost of cybercrime, nearly 1% of global GDP. |
| 1:17.0 | While the costs are enormous, they are still manageable, and more importantly importantly they pass largely unnoticed. |
| 1:25.7 | The public lacking context for each new attack remains blind to the gathering threat, |
| 1:31.8 | unable to appreciate the gravity of a cyber 9-11. |
| 1:35.0 | Until now, crime and terrorism on the internet has been measured in dollars and |
| 1:41.0 | since. |
| 1:42.0 | But what happens when we begin to measure it in terms of flesh and blood? |
| 1:47.0 | The 20th century saw its share of industrial innovation and forward progress, but for the most part, those changes were discreet. |
| 1:55.5 | Things got bigger, faster, cheaper, and more luxurious. |
| 1:59.7 | But no one would ever say that a train became a toaster or that a pacemaker turned into an |
| 2:05.1 | aisle of books. The composition of an object, its component parts, did not exist |
... |
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