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Although technology vendors prefer customers use their products according to pre-planned use cases, incorporating misleading user interfaces and crafting questionable decision points for users can induce them to make low-information decisions that may adversely impact their cybersecurity operational postures. 

The people of Baltimore are beginning their fifth week under an electronic siege that has prevented residents from obtaining building permits and business licenses – and even buying or selling homes. A year after hackers disrupted the city’s emergency services dispatch system, city workers throughout the city are unable to, among other things, use their government email accounts or conduct routine city business. 

Major U.S. cities plunged into darkness. The financial system frozen. Transportation crippled. Drinking water in short supply. These are just a few of the ways that a successful cyberattack on critical infrastructure could wreak havoc on U.S. national security, economic stability and public health and safety. Worries that hackers are getting closer to inflicting serious damage on the U.S. were underscored in July, when the Department of Homeland Security reported that Russian agents had penetrated the control rooms of electric utilities, where they could have caused widespread blackouts. Should the Government Require Companies to Meet Cybersecurity Standards for Critical Infrastructure? Some argue that government regulation is needed to keep critical systems safe from hackers. Others say industry can do a better job on its own. The Department of Homeland Security reported in July that Russian agents had penetrated the control rooms of electric utilities Against that backdrop, a debate is under way about what U.S. policy makers should do to keep critical systems safe. 

As the 2018 midterms proceed, there are still significant risks to the integrity of the voting system – and information warfare continues to try to influence the American public’s choices when they cast their ballots. 

The Russian attacks on the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the country’s continuing election-related hacking have happened across all three dimensions of cyberspace – physical, informational and cognitive. The first two are well-known: For years, hackers have exploited hardware and software flaws to gain unauthorized access to computers and networks – and stolen information they’ve found. The third dimension, however, is a newer target – and a more concerning one. 

Technological developments such as the internet, smartphones and social media offer individuals and organisations alike the power to develop, strengthen and/or exploit common interests and group capabilities through shared community participation. But through this process and these technologies, communities can also become selectively informed, intensely fragmented and, ultimately, at odds with each other. The 2016 US presidential election offered a global glimpse of such effects upon both Western democratic political processes and the foundations of society more broadly. This chapter explores the nature of power within the modern networked society. By situating the discussion within this decentralised information environment, it examines how the sources of social authority and political power – in other words, the capacity to create widepread tangible outcomes – have become fl attened, with new sources of meaningful social infl uence arising at the network’s edges – a situation which the author presents as the ‘authorisation-availability’ dynamic regarding the fl ow of networked information. Using two examples from internet history, he discusses how these network-level entities challenge existing sources of social and political power and create a confl icting cycle of outcomes as the old power paradigms are challenged. Ultimately, the author warns that, despite the potential for dramatic shifts or upheavals in the application of social power through decentralised networks and technological developments – which remains a cherished Gibson-esque cyberpunk notion, radical shifts in the balance of power in society are possible but not assured; however, a constant tension remains between the actors involved.