And only one way ahead, apparently.

Back in 2017, a former CIA director complained that millennials may leak secrets because they are “culturally different”. In that occasion, I collected some explanations of the real, huge problem that any organization like CIA or NSA must face in the 21st century:

1. you can’t run a national security organization if you can’t rely on the loyalty of the majority of your workers
2. but today’s workers “grew up in a globalized, liquid labor world” that creates societal ruptures, more suspect individuals and generally undermines any ability to create a meaningful republic"

One year later…

I questioned possibilities of success of using machine learning for security clearances… of the same people object of my earlier post.

I observed that such a system may “end up unused, wasting lots of taxpayers money, simply because less and less people every year” may want to work (with enough “loyalty”, at least) for the organization that runs it.

This year, another symptom of the same general trend

Bruce Schneier explained the extremely simple reason why today it is impossible to give law enforcement access to encrypted consumer devices without endangering business products or affect critical infrastructure:

Today, customized security is both more expensive because it is unique, and less secure because it’s nonstandard and untested.

Consequently, these days pretty much [every military electronics] that doesn’t have to be hardened for battle is the exact same product purchased by consumers. The same happens with corporate and government mission-critical systems and communications.

One world, one network, one answer

For Schneier, the conclusion is obvious: today nobody can weaken consumer systems without also weakening commercial, government, and military systems. Really strong encryption is too essential for everybody to be weakened.

That’s the 21st CENTURY, baby. The CENTURY!!

Encryption is just one side of the whole picture, of course. But put Schneier’s argument side by side with those in my earlier posts, and they all seem to point in the same direction (for lack of alternatives able to sustain themselves, if nothing else):

a world where States have no other choice but to need less security than today, by becoming really open, democratic, participated, inclusive. Do you agree?