Category: Uncategorised

18-10-21

Dear Partners in thought,

As Brexit and Trump are now “done” (apparently not for sure for the latter), Desperate Measures will take a new focus going forward. As a French-born Transatlantic European I will now concentrate more on the European Union as it is a key matter for global stability and prosperity – and for the future of Europe and its nations.

In a world which Lord Cornwallis would recognise as “upside down” like at Yorktown, where historical allies are less reliable – hopefully temporarily – and key adversaries more defined and assertive, the EU needs to redefine what it wants to be going forward. For the EU member states, the future is clearly European or gradual oblivion.

There is an urgent need to redefine a new course for the EU which is clearly based on a strict adherence to the European values inherent to liberal democracy, individual freedom, human dignity and the rule of law. I will go back to many of these features in the months to come but the seven pillars of European power should be as follows:

1. Restore and strengthen a mutually beneficial Transatlantic relationship

While the Obama administration started a shift of focus from Europe to Asia, Donald Trump exacerbated matters in style and substance, even if his criticism of NATO member defence spending was not wrong. The Biden administration’s AUKUS strategy in the Indo-Pacific (that may have had its own rationale) marked a rare and direct blow against its oldest ally, France – and beyond, the whole EU. This may have been a one-off deviation that Washington scrambled to assuage, but it also marks the culminating point of a markedly-changed America which is acting more like any other power focused on its own interests, and not as the leader of the West for which it was known since WW2. However, there is nothing to gain for the two sides of the “pond” to grow distant as both will lose out. The EU and the US need to work as one – all the more so as the world has changed, and threats are more real than ever.

2. Strengthen EU independence and build a real defence apparatus

The EU has existed as a meaningful world power only through trade, which it leads worldwide. This is no longer enough to exist globally – and possibly to survive. The time when some EU member states can only focus on exports of their goods, whatever their rationalisation, is finished. All member states should contribute to a common defence fund while gradually building a European defence force. An interim period can exist where countries like France, with a powerful military organisation, can fill the void and help shape the new EU defence programme. This drive for a strong independent defence is no longer an option and should also be welcome across the pond.

3. Engage but be tough with a more assertive China

China has reached a point where it is a serious contender for world leadership in many areas, this after decades of unparalleled growth. Its leadership style, strangely still Communist-flavoured in name only, is clearly autocratic and in opposition to most of what the EU stands for, the Uighur camps not being a sole example. It is clear that as the EU builds up its independence and defence apparatus, it needs to clearly communicate with China, in cooperation with the US, that we are very different and will not accept everything from them. However, an anti-China rhetoric that started with the Trump administration and keeps going on today should not be the way of the EU unless it wants to partake in going down the road to mutual perdition. The EU should be tough, but should also engage with China so we can all work together and resolve potential conflicts before they actually arise. The more China is integrated in the global economy as they are, the less the risk of a massive slippage in Asia or elsewhere (I should stress that I seed capital invested in Toorbee, a European start-up focused on outbound Chinese tourism, also on the premises that the more the Chinese see the world, the better for all of us when they return back home and can help “change” at their own individual level).

One card the EU should play in this West-China geopolitical rivalry is to work on instilling a mutually-beneficial rapprochement with Russia, that was sought in the past by the likes of Macron, that may influence a more peaceful behaviour on its part (Ukraine would appreciate) and a return to a pre-WW1 alliance of sorts. Russia is not a natural partner of China – it is also a rival – and would gradually feel the junior partner of an anti-Western partnership which is not what the Russian leadership will ever want.

4. Take the leadership on Climate Change

There is no issue more key today, short of avoiding a nuclear holocaust, than winning the war on Climate Change. It is an existential fight the world cannot lose, which the EU can take a leadership in fighting. COP 26 in Britain is a good example of a new focus, even if Britain is no longer a member state and as it follows the steps of the landmark Paris COP 20 Agreement. This is probably one of the easiest common themes to implement even if some members states, and not the smallest ones, still depend on old energy resources. There is a clear consensus, even if the implementation challenges are real. No room for mistakes.

5. Defend European identity (also to defeat populism)

Immigration is welcome and at times needed as many countries notice with shortages of taken-for-granted truck drivers like in Britain post-Brexit. At the same time identity is also existential and the perception of its theft too intense for those who are not all “bad people” and feel left out by those who lead us. The 2015 mass immigration that some countries like Germany welcomed at the top to fill in needed jobs, is no longer an option and should be clearly stated. Regulating immigration, while welcoming all talents the EU would need, is the only way to defeat inept populism with its easy answers to complex issues and no ability to govern adequately. Defending identity will bring back to mainstream rational political thinking those who should also be respected for naturally wanting to feel at home in their country. This identity-focused approach should go hand in hand with working more closely on soundly structured and monitored economic aid packages with the countries where refugee flows are the greatest so the desperate and often dangerous urge to “leave” markedly recedes.

6. Invest massively in education (also to counter tech-enabled populism)

Another aspect of the fight against populism is to invest massively in education to counter the negative impact of tech and social media-enabled dissemination of fake news and simplistic populist ideas that usually appeal to the uneducated. This education drive, beyond the teaching of rational thinking and other key subject matters, should also involve across the EU landscape a full curriculum as to what it means to be European and why it is good for all. There has been an absence of telling EU citizens about the benefits of EU membership, which education from a young age should deal with as a matter of strategic priority.

7. Enlarge but not all costs

The Western Balkans and a few other small Eastern European countries, many with a challenging past, have wanted to join the EU for years. It has been an admittedly long process for a variety of reasons, including the lack of enthusiasm of some key existing member states as seen recently at a recent EU summit. It is key to keep to the process and reject no European-based country from joining, but it should not be done at the cost of dividing and weakening the current family home, especially as it keeps digesting the historical blow of Brexit and deals with the hopefully temporary vagaries of Hungary and Poland (demonstrators and voters helping) that keep trampling on club rules while too easily forgetting their challenging pasts and vast historical membership benefits.

Bonus pillar: Gradually bring Britain back

It may be too early to mention a return to the EU, all the more so as the current British government is happy not to adhere to the terms of a Treaty it signed in January 2020. However, the EU must look into the future, realising that younger generations who did not vote much in June 2016, are massively pro-European and will change the British game when older Brexiteers simply disappear. Britain is a key part of Europe, however difficult it can be at times, and should fittingly be a member of the “club” so we are stronger. Brexit was a victory of populism facilitated by practically-minded politicians who simply wanted to lead their country and were ready to embrace any compromise to achieve their goals, like pursuing a damaging course or changing the tenets of their party’s ideology. As the impact of Brexit keeps being felt, and the UK risks being disunited, it is not unthinkable that popular opinion will eventually shift massively for Britain to re-join in less time that could be thought previously, again with the younger generations at the helm. It is imperative that the EU assists those British forces to make the sensible choice for all of us when the time comes.

These seven pillars are not the only areas to work on. Enhancing democracy within the EU is key – and indeed existential all the more in today’s world. Matters like the regulation of Big Tech in terms of contents and taxation, which has started, is key. The fight against corruption of our political elites and business in general is also crucial. A fair taxation system that cares for the people of the EU without alienating entrepreneurial innovation is essential, like a health system that covers all its citizens and could modelled on the tested French one. A global drive to ensure more sanity in the financial world with the gradual rejection of the decoupling of profitability and massive valuation of ever loss-making listed tech stocks like in New York should be a European agenda, this to avoid fuelling revolutionary anger going forward. A more focused approach to assisting those still called developing nations linked to the respect of human rights should be essential. More at home, an intransigence on EU members that do not respect the letter and spirit of EU legislation, values and principles while happily cashing in should be the enforced norm, even leading to their exclusion, a scenario they would never wish to happen beyond the usual grandstanding. The list of key issues could go on of course.

One of the major issues, if not the major one, facing the EU at some point, years if not decades from now, will be to decide if it wants to have its 1776. The word itself scares many but may seem years from now like a natural development which could be done without forgetting the roots of member states as citizens of Virginia or Texas would confirm today. However, this is for another time. It is key now to build the seven pillars of European power and let the EU thrive in the structure we know. This would be a major achievement.

Warmest regards,

Serge

04-05-20

Dear Partners in thought,

As I was reading “In defense of elitism” by William A. Henry III, a Pulitzer-winning author and once cultural editor of Time Magazine, I felt his book was very relevant 26 years later given the times we know and the slow and unfair descent of the word “elitism” into the hell of the bad words in our societies. As Henry had written then and Bill Clinton was in full swing in his first term, the word “elitist” was beginning to be a catchall pejorative of all times and on its way to outstrip “racist”. The book was published in 1994 and sadly Henry died of a heart attack as it was coming out (hopefully not from the wave of harsh critics from the dissenters of his times). Henry, while a Yalie (but of course), was not your conservative or reactionary type of his times or someone like a current Trump official à la AG William Barr or red MAGA cap supporter. Henry was a registered Democrat and an ACLU (for those too young to know its heydays, the American Civil Liberties Union, a champion of the civil rights movement in the 1960s) which makes his opus all the more fascinating and relevant in our times even if flavored by the America of the early nineties. In other words, being a liberal democrat and an elitist was possible then as it should be now, this if I may say also translated globally.

While his views reflect Henry’s times, even if we remember them as being only yesterday, and would be odd in terms of how we see some key topics, like gender equality, then affirmative action, education in society, nature vs. nurture, I recommend you the book as it makes you think (there a few copies on Amazon, costing literally nothing). As a side matter It is also interesting to see how society changes in such a short time without us really noticing while some of the ways we may look at things may stay broadly unchanged.

As we watch and sadly get used to the “new normal” of Donald Trump’s White House briefing reality show in these pandemic times, we cannot help thinking about what went wrong in our world. Trump if anything has been the culmination point, through his ascent to what we grew up as seeing as the top job in the world, of the war against elitism and what goes with it such as the “experts”, the “Deep State”, not to mention intellectualism, the mainstream media and fact-based news and knowledge. Elitism, which is nothing more than the expression of common sense, has been under attack by the rise of the effortless and fact-less “know it all” populists with their primacy of vote-grabbing pseudo-egalitarianism usually combined with their dose of hatred for what used to constitute power as well as curiously the “foreigner” and globalization, all wrapped up in a narrow defense of nationalist-flavored cultural identity, to seize or increase their power and audience in the democratic West in recent years. Those with easy answers to complex issues have now taken over world leadership positions and try to stay in charge while they do not possess the simplest attributes of leadership. I grew tired long ago by the easy attacks on “those who knew” or had risen to “senior positions” as if by sheer mistake or a form of lottery, this all the more as their critics were experienced an always hard to suppress feeling of resentment and unfairness at times tainted of jealousy – something that the new populist “normal” if not era has helped them assuage.

Henry felt rightly that the populist scorn had more to do with values and intellectual distinction-making than with money even if those part of the elite had also secured the latter to some degree, this all the more as the anti-elitist crowd had never been really against money for themselves as demonstrated by the “stable genius”. The redeeming feature of elitism is that it is an approach which if aristocratic in the Greek sense (“the best”), it could never be only a reflection of inherited nobility (even if admittedly the latter were part of if not the elite in ancient times. Elitism in modern times has been thriving for excellence as the old McKinsey duo of old used to proclaim in my youth in their famed book on the very topic. Elitism in our times is not the product or a reflection of a closed shop and is always open to those who work and think hard or harder, this even today.

As you may daily meet populist idiocy and they scorn “elitism” in your face you should borrow from William Henry and remind those enlightened people what elitism really is:

• Respect and even deference toward leadership (assuming it is real and of the old-fashioned kind unlike what we have seen lately in some key countries, something Henry might not have fathomed as possible) and position
• Esteem for accomplishment especially if achieved through long labor and rigorous education
• Reverence for heritage, particularly in history, philosophy, and culture
• Commitment to rationalism and scientific investigation
• Upholding of objective standards
• (more importantly for Henry though I see it as a by-product) the willingness to assert unyieldingly that one idea, contribution or attainment is better than another (this being seen a quarter of a century ago as the overly “insensitive” drive for some that helped political correctness, one of Henry’s nemesis, to thrive but which should never prevent us from discussing any matters freely and openly)

Lloyd Glenn, one of the lead opposition research campaign counsels to Vice President George H.W. Bush in 1988 (the race against Mike Dukakis), so in other words today a “Never Trumper” Republican, wrote an interesting piece in the FT last Thursday. He felt that Trump, clearly a successful American-flavored populist, strong in his hatred of the despised elite, and experts of all types for highly practical reasons, had been the director of the new Republican Party orchestra remaking the U.S. the country of White America and the South (he could have added some of the rural Midwest and be more precise in stressing “older white male America”). It is telling that the title of his op-ed was “The American Confederacy Rises Again” as shown with the many and at times unsurprisingly counter-productive Dixie flags out in the open across America during the anti-lockdown demonstrations. What else do we need to see to confirm that traditional elitism together with its fact-based drive and its search for excellence is again and always on the right side of history? Writing those words I admit that the statement is more of an Hercule Poirot exercise of connecting the dots which could be construed as an easy sophistic exercise while I admit shamelessly that I grew up liking “Gone with the Wind”. However, there is something there…

A new book by Joel Stein again entitled “In defense of Elitism” (perhaps the old heading was so good and to the point there was no need for reinventing the wheel, copyright aside) was just published, this time based on our current times including visits to some of the Trump “left out” strongholds of Middle America. I have not been able to read or even secure the book in these pandemic times (Amazon not having it yet when I checked as part of its wide offering) though a conversation between him and the great Walter Isaacson on CNN (I plead guilty for being a viewer of the globalist news channel) was very interesting, the book being more based on the author’s inter-actions with people he interviewed than his views on the principles of elitism as with William Henry. Different times, different approaches though same focus.

Warmest regards,

Serge

13-2-20

Dear Partners in thought,

As you know, Desperate Measures is a blog about the defense of Western liberal values in an unstable world which macro-events like the Trump ascent or now Brexit have made markedly worse from Western bloc standpoints be they related to NATO, the transatlantic relationship or the EU. Another sub- and linked facet of the blog is the discussion of conflicts in our world and their theaters, of which the newest one is doubtless cyber warfare. 

I wanted to give you yet another glimpse at cyber warfare this time through “the Fifth Domain” the latest book of Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake. The Fifth Domain is that of cyber after sea, air, land and space which have been the traditional “theaters of war”. Richard (Dick) A. Clarke, a 30 U.S. year government veteran, was one of the lead counter terrorism and indeed the first cyber warfare/security adviser to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and is now considered the foremost American expert on cyber warfare strategy while the younger Robert (Bob) K. Knake, now a senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in New York was Director for Cyber Security Policy at the National Security Council under Barack Obama. Those who like to spend their time in the trenches of defense strategy matters will recall that they both published “Cyber War” which in 2010 was giving a preview many did not believe about a world that would be subjected to cyber-attacks or hacks from both nation-states and criminal gangs that would threaten countries’ infrastructures like power grids, the business and financial sectors not to mention our ways of life. 

The book, covering the recent years of cyber warfare and its potential future, is about making us understand the cyber threat, its impact on our societies and defining ways that would make us stronger and one day immune from it. While going through many current facets of cyber warfare, Dick and Bob cover the topics of international cooperation, the protection of the integrity of elections, the impact of AI and Quantum Computing while making a number of proposals to improve cyber defense. It is clear that their approach and vantage point are very American and will thus involve a lot of things that Europeans may not directly relate to though many topics such as the role of government in protecting business and by which precise ways, triggering many sub-issues like privacy, may transcend borders (at least in the democratic West as cyber regulations are indeed simpler in China or Russia, this creating another sub-topic like the existence of one global or several internets in the future).      

Rather than going through the whole book I would like to list via bullet points key thoughts and facts put forward by Dick and Bob about cyber warfare and its battlefield today.

• Cyber warfare is about the superiority of offense against defense, the latter which always has been so far in a catch-up mode. Cyber is about the Offense Preference even if defense is closing the gap by taking advantage of new technologies and a renewed focus on the part of governments and businesses. 

• Leading businesses and governments are attacked several hundreds of thousands of times every day.  Nearly all these attacks now fail but it takes one win for the offense to prevail.

• According to Dick and Bob, cybersecurity should be a shared responsibility between government and the private sector, with the onus for protecting computer systems falling on the owners and operators of those systems – a view that is not shared by some in government, notably by some in the military and intelligence communities who would see the fifth domain as a field where they should also lead the charge, all the more due to the threats caused by the direct and indirect hacks of nation states.  

• “Cyber resilience” should be the main focus, this in building systems so that most attacks cause no harm, allowing for responses and recovery from attacks that do succeed, with minimal to no disruption. Cyber resilience would lead to shifting the traditional and often erroneously historically perceived advantage from the attacker to the defender.  

• One of the objectives of the “defenders”, largely Western nation-states (even if they go at times preemptive or retaliatorily offensive) is now through resilience to make attacks more difficult and costlier to execute for criminal outfits at times acting as proxies for nation-states of for the latter themselves when emanating from one of their military or intelligence units. 

• Identification of offenders can be complex and time-consuming as experienced hackers, whoever they may be, often use mundane ways to carry their attacks. One of these could be using a stolen credit card number bought for 50 cents on the dark web and setting up an Amazon Web Services account that would be used to carry out the attack.    

• Offenders can be nation states and/or criminal gangs (sometimes combined) and identification is always challenging even if the culprits are well-known. Among nation states, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are to some degree the worst offenders with Russia being the most dangerous and volatile is usually strategically politically motivated while China has traditionally been focused on IP theft, which it always considered a key element of its world leadership building ambitions. Offenders officially deny all cyberattacks or, if required, reject the blame on non-governmental entities, even if “patriotic” ones they state they would not control.

• For some nation-states like Russia, cyberwarfare is one of the elements of hybrid warfare, which along diplomacy, intelligence and other means short of actual war and as part of it even if not obvious at times can be deployed precisely like in the case of the seizure of Crimea and the activities of so-called local militias or “green men” in eastern Ukraine. Hybrid warfare is about “disruption” something cyber offense, a relatively cheap tactical tool, is focused on.

• Western powers, including the U.S. now also resort to preemptive strikes or offensive defense (the most well-known being Stuxnet when the U.S. and Israel struck at the Iranian Natanz nuclear processing facilities to stop nuclear enrichment). This attack that was both a success (it achieved it goals) was also a fiasco as the attackers were quickly discovered and the viruses hit well beyond Iran, spreading worldwide and ended up being stolen for re-use by a number of hacking groups also aiming at American businesses.

• The three main attacks that had a wide impact in recent years were those that took place in 2016 and 2017 and were named Petya, WannaCry and NotPetya. Two were Russian military-initiated (at times unwittingly) and one was North Korean-military sponsored.

• WannaCry, that was “officially” a ransomware attack, occurred in May 2017 and got well-known for one of its targets being the British NHS and its network of hospitals, many of which came to a standstill, not being able to proceed with planned, at times time-critical, surgeries. Seven months later WannyCry was identified as having being perpetrated by the North Korean Lazarus Group, an outfit part of the North Korean government and in line with the reaction against a movie that had mocked the country’s leader and for which an American studio had suffered a strong cyber attack.  

• WannaCry was a prelude to NotPetya (named after a 2016 Russian-originated cyberattack against Microsoft servers globally which took its name after one of the bad Russian characters in a James Bond movie), which was launched by the Russian GRU with Ukraine in sight but which went well beyond Ukraine via the infection of computer systems operating globally. While 10% of all Ukrainian computer systems went down many global companies suddenly grounded to a halt. Maersk, Merck, Mondelez (the OJ Oreo cookies) or TNT Express were severely affected, even if they had not been intended GRU targets. (Interestingly Zurich Insurance denied paying for the cyber insurance coverage of Mondelez as it viewed the attack as not covered by the cyber policy as an act of war; the matter is currently being discussed in a court of law).   

• For those who want to know how NotPetya took place, the GRU hacked into Linkos Group, the Ukrainian software company responsible to install and manage the accounting software of most companies and government ministries in Ukraine, sending periodic updates to programs. The updates were digitally signed by Linkos and thus recognized by all the firewalls of their clients. The GRU planted an attack package in one of the Linkos updates that exploited a known Microsoft server software vulnerability combined with a password-hacking tool and instructions that would spread to any connected device on the network, wiping them of all software. In doing so, the GRU would have not realized that global companies operating in Ukraine and their global network would be hit due to the virus spread over Virtual Private Networks and corporate fiber connections back to headquarters in locations like England, Denmark, the U.S. and elsewhere.         

• To be sure Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are not the only offenders even if they tend to use cyber very liberally as a policy tool and are often starting cyber conflicts unlike the U.S. and Western powers. During the 2018 mid-terms, U.S. Cyber Command led massive attacks against Russian targets as a preemptive strike and doubtless a reminder of what happened with the astute attacks of Russian social networks during the 2016 presidential elections (it is to be noted that the Trump campaign and then administration which benefitted unwittingly – one will say – from these Russian attacks kept to the 20 year US cyber warfare strategy implemented by President Clinton, though allowing for cyber strikes to take pace without presidential authorization as required by President Obama, this to avoid dangerous and slippery slopes).      

• Estimates put worldwide spending on cybersecurity (in the West) at USD 114bn in 2018 while venture capital investments in cybersecurity start-ups reached USD 5bn and cyber insurance, long a fringe market, reached USD 2bn in gross written premium that year. Cyberattacks created a new, substantial market that gave another life and segment to the tech sector among big and smaller operators.   

• Leading banks, that have actually  become tech companies that happen to lend money, spend today USD 500m on cyber defense tools per budget year so our bank accounts and data are protected with many of them feeling that in five years they should be immune from cyber threats. Their in-house cybersecurity teams number hundreds of staff. Each of these banks use and daily rotate upwards of five or six dozen different, layered software tools developed by as many cybersecurity vendors to detect and prevent attacks.  Banks are the most impregnable targets for hackers, most low-level criminal hackers having left that field which is still pursued by nation states as shown in 2012 in the U.S. as a payback for Stuxnet. JP Morgan Chase, the leading U.S. bank spends USD 10bn a year in tech and employs 50,000 technologists (Facebook and Google in comparison have staffs of 35,000 and 61,000) while it spends 6% or USD 600m on IT security.  

• Contrary to popular opinion “defense” when properly funded and equipped is winning against offense though knowing that the cost of the latter is a tiny fraction of that of the former. While offense is often a prevailing tactics to preempt or retaliate against cyberattacks (notoriously advocated by then NSC head John Bolton in 2018) many U.S. cyber experts also in government take the view that “those who live in glass houses should not throw stones”.    

• Attackers’ helmets can be ripped off by defenders who can identify them but nothing is being done as the latter are operating from jurisdictions like Russia or Iran that will not cooperate with U.S. and Western European countries. Two well-known Iranian hackers (pure criminals in this case) are now living happily in the suburbs of Tehran, having earned several millions of dollars from a series of sophisticated ransomware hacks against businesses in 2018. However, one should add that they have to spend their ill-gotten gains in Iran…    

• The risk of contagion through supply chains comprising thousands of SMEs for large industrial groups is one of the main weak points that require attention and is tricky due to the vast fragmentation of the segment and costs associated with the defense for SMEs.  Cloud service providers that have dedicated thousands of people and billions of dollars to protecting data enable SMEs to operate more safely on-line.

• NotPetya which struck in June 2017 was launched by Fancy Bear, a.k.a. the GRU or Russian military intelligence’s cyber unit. According to the UK, the GRU operating as Sandworm attacked the Ukrainian power grid in 2015 and 2016. Operating under Cyber Caliphate, the GRU shut down TV5, the French television network. It interfered in the investigations of assassination attempts against dissidents in Bristol, England, the Russian doping of Olympic athletes and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. And as we know too well it penetrated the Democratic National Committee during the U.S. presidential elections in 2016.  

• As Dmitri Alperovitch, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and founder of famed cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, when at McAfee said: “There are two kinds of companies: those that have been hacked and know it; and those that have been hacked and don’t” (as an aside and as a tribute to their strong education system throughout the regimes and ages, there are many Russians involved on both sides of the cyber warfare equation!). Cyberwarfare has led to the emergence of many firms and a new segment with the likes of CrowdStrike, Dragos, Cylance and FireEye, not to mention Kaspersky (even if its Russian origins has cast a few shadows in some U.S. quarters recently) or Microsoft’s Advanced Threat Detection.

• There are 200 so-called groups propagating Advanced Persistent Threats or APTS and going after governments and leading businesses, 77 of them Chinese and focused on Intellectual Property Theft. 

• Most sophisticated attacks today still rely on spear phishing, hoping that some individuals (only one) will click on the link or attachment of an email offering him or her a free vacation or an amazing date that was long overdue. No amount of training, even if consistently pursued, will eliminate what the “sector” calls the “Poor Dave” after a well-known cartoon showing a boxing ring with on one side, firewalls, encryption and anti-virus software and on the opposite corner an overweight, slovenly, middle-aged Dave sporting a silly grin and a T shirt that says Human Error…There is no training Daves as they always click. However, companies now increasingly do random tests so the Daves can be identified and made to reflect after they get a “you’ve got phished” message and a delightful invitation to HR. 

• The future of technology will be impacted by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Quantum Computing, 5G (much in the news due to the Chinese control of the main 5G provider, Huawei and associated strategic issues) and IOT or the Internet of Things. While explaining the basics of these four key items and their developments, Dick and Bob go through technical details that apply to their current and future developments that will delight the tech-minded and security policy wonks alike.     

• It would be bad not to address the key topic of cyber hygiene that concerns us all as telecommunication device users and which Dick and Bob do cover in the book. They offer a list of steps to be taken to prevent as much as possible the impact of cyberattacks even if in our case usually not emanating from nation-states or their proxies.  The list is admittedly long and many of the steps are unlikely to be followed strictly as we are not corporations or governments or perhaps not all IT or cyber-interested. Anyway, here they are and some of these pieces of advices should be read in terms of what matters to you: 

1. If you are an American citizen, just stop worrying about your Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Your Social Security Number was already stolen several times.
2. Keep your passwords differentiated even if they may number 20+, use ten digit passwords (no less), pepper them with #, ^and *, potentially obtain a password manager like those at LastPass, Dashlane or Zoho – admittedly not household names.
3. Do not keep all your password on a yellow ticker on your laptop. Duh. 
4. If worried use one main password and a second certification like getting an SMS with a number to use as a second password. Many banks require this already.
5. If worried, don’t use debit cards. Use only credit cards. Limit the monthly amount on them. For really unusually huge transactions, ask a human to call you for confirmation. Don’t be surprised if your transaction is stopped when you travel to and discover beautiful Chad at the last minute…Use answers to bank verification questions which are weird but yours (like if the question is what is your favorite baseball team and you are from Boston, don’t say the Red Sox. I know it’s hard).
6. Beware of emails from Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook that look perfectly fine telling you need to rest your password. Just focus on the weird address of the sender with all these X, Z, w and its range of weird numbers. And don’t click, Dave!
7. Beware of webcams on your devices including laptops and even if they look dormant. The same is true of cell phones (and why I always have to leave mine at the entrance of the US Embassy in Prague, this for several years. Strangely their French counterpart is more trustworthy…).   
8. I can’t do that but Dick and Bob advise to keep only two months of emails (back up the previous ones if you really to keep them) unless you want your prose potentially found in strange places, especially if you write incendiary or compromising pieces…       

I know I wish we could all be so good and wise. By the way the final advice of Dick and Bob is also to enjoy all the wonderful things that the internet provides modern society and stop worrying about the threats lurking in the shadows.  

I hope you enjoyed this Book Note on a topic that I would have never bothered with ten-fifteen years ago so tech-foreign I always was. However, it is great to keep up with our times and even fight the good fight while keeping young (even for those 1960ers like me!).

While I do not want to unduly advertise it, I am also a seed investor in a young UK cyber security start-up (yes even with the dreadful Brexit), Britain thanks to GCHQ being a beacon of cybersecurity excellence globally. If any of you may have a need in cyber risk prevention and management, so beyond managing the “after attack” and going after these guys in Tehran, I will always be very happy to put you in touch with my cyber warriors.

Warmest regards,

Serge       

18-1-19

Dear Partners in thought,

Having used that Agatha Christie line for the recent exit of Jim Mattis in the former colonies, it seemed appropriate to use it again in its very national context after this amazing Westminster and Brexit week and choreography. 

As you have noted previous interludes pointed to a logical defeat of Ms. May deal as early as of December with a most likely and logical outcome, however sensitive and divisive, that I need not restating.   

As we are flooded by too much news, I thought that I would provide you with bullet points that can be debated over a pint at the pub this weekend. 

• HM’s government suffered the biggest defeat of any British government in parliamentary British history
• Theresa May’s deal is dead even if she and the government do not want to see it 
• Her win of the no confidence vote put partisan politics ahead of the national interest and is no sign of any mandate
• The EU will not renegotiate substantially anything with the UK at this time whatever wishful thinking in the air
• A majority against the No Deal Exit which is already there in Parliament will firm up 
• Labour will finally opt for a second referendum which Jeremy Corbyn will endorse short of his general election dreams   
• Ms May will drop the idea that giving people a voice in the end is “a subversion of democracy” 
• Parliament will find a cross-party majority to let the people revisit the matter of leaving the EU together with whatever viable option that the EU would have agreed to is left including likely a No Deal exit
• Technical objections to a second referendum like changing the law or the time it would take will be managed as soon as the EU backs the extension the UK needs and Article 50 is removed
• The latest YouGov people giving a 56%-44% 12 points majority to stay in the EU is a clear statement that a referendum “based on facts as we know them” is needed whatever sophistry in the partisan air  

In the end, Brexit will not happen as the British will not want to be markedly poorer and marginalised in the world thus losing the independence they had as a strong and leading EU member state. 
A crucial point that will sway the vote of many erstwhile Leavers is also the realisation that the leaders of Brexit given their social origins and status would never really suffer from an EU exit whatever grand statements by the likes of the Oxfordian John Redwood, Boris Johnson Michael Gove, or Jacob Rees-Mogg, the latter whose hedge fund management firm he founded is moving to Dublin. 

I am not planning to comment much on the Brexit developments going forward as the news flow will be of a tsunami proportion and I realise the sensitivities involved. However please remember my Cartesian forecast and let us see whether Britain, the most rational country in the history of our modern world, keeps to its tradition. This whatever we hear from the partisan trenches. 

Rule Britannia! 

Warmest regards,
Serge