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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Back to the Analog Future - Where is my fax machine?

Friday, July 22, 2022

Categories: ASCF News Technical Power

Comments: 3

By Scott Tilley, ASCF Senior Fellow

July 20, 2022

Photo: pt.wikipedia.org/

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “The 80s called, and they want their fax machine back.” This phrase is usually uttered in derision towards some Luddite who won’t give up their antiquated habits and who doesn’t want to try new technology. Until recently, I thought the Luddite in question was hopelessly out of touch with the modern world and doomed to inevitable obsolescence. Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe the Luddite is on to something. Maybe we’re headed back to an analog future.

***

On July 8, Rogers Communications (one of Canada’s three major telecom companies) suffered a system-wide service outage. The outage affected more than 12 million Rogers customers across the country. They lost Internet access, cellphone networks, and bank transactions. For those in Florida, think of this as a major hurricane that knocks out power and communications, but the outage is in every state simultaneously. No browsing the web. No cell phones. No text messages. No 911 calls (for Internet phones). No ATM withdrawals. No credit cards.

Imagine if a significant percentage of America went offline all at once. Most of the digital technology we use in our everyday lives would be unavailable. Much of our national infrastructure would shut down or run amok without proper control. Pharmacies couldn’t fill prescriptions. Hospitals couldn’t access electronic health records, causing surgeries to be canceled. Flights would be grounded. Gas would be unavailable at most pumps. There would be a dash for groceries. You get the picture.

If this sounds apocalyptic, that’s because it is.

The official line is that Rogers went down due to a faulty maintenance update. This reason is somewhat plausible since the software that controls telecom systems is very large and incredibly complex. Moreover, bad patches cause all kinds of problems in software systems every day; the literature of full of case studies relating how “hot swaps” produce unintended consequences when things inevitably go awry. But these procedures usually have localized (although with possible knock-on) effects; they don’t typically take the whole infrastructure down all at once.

The more paranoid theory is that Rogers was the victim of a cyberattack. Such an attack could infect the entire system, and quite quickly, if it was able to circumvent the system’s security protocols. The news is full of examples of enterprises subjected to ransomware demands and other forms of cybercrime. This misuse of technical power is highly asymmetrical: it’s relatively easy to carry out, there is little chance of getting caught and/or prosecuted, and it’s extremely lucrative. In fact, these digital infections are becoming endemic: they are so common that one of the fastest growing industries is cyber insurance with policies to protect against precisely the sort of thing Rogers experienced. But the policies don’t usually cover the consumer.

The most alarming theory is unlikely to have occurred in the Rogers situation, but it might happen in the near future. Our government has known for a long time that the detonation of an atomic weapon low in the atmosphere over a densely populated area would cause widespread damage. Not the physical kind, although that is certainly possible, but the digital kind. Any electronic device operating without shielding (almost everything) would be burned out by the blast’s electromagnetic pulse (EMP). It’s a nightmare scenario that keeps risk planners up at night – as it should.

***

If most of our digital devices didn’t work, what would work? The answer can be found in the average person’s response to the Rogers outage. It was a real-world, real-time case study of a modern and highly-connected economy being forced to operate without its backbone, and like our human bodies, backbones are clearly not digital – they are very analog.

How would you communicate? Satellite phones might still work, but almost no one has one. However, old-fashioned landlines would almost certainly be available. Unfortunately, I’ve not had a landline in nearly twenty years, so I’d be out of luck. That makes me wonder, are there still dial-up modem services available? I can almost hear the old AOL 56K “connecting” sounds now.

Ham radios might be an option. There are a surprising number of amateur radio enthusiasts still around. Maybe that old CB radio could do the trick too.

How would you buy anything? Without credit and debit cards, how is commerce transacted? The Rogers outage affected the Interac system, which is used for direct debit payments and fund transfers in Canada. As a result, many businesses were forced to switch to cash only. But who carries cash anymore? And forget about that digital wallet – useless. Perhaps a barter and trade system would be the way to go.

Maybe I could ask my daughter to uncover the dusty old fax machine in the garage and see if it can be resurrected. But there’s that lack-of-landline problem. And the fact that she’s never heard of a fax machine.

###

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  1. Jack Lee Jack Lee I would like to believe that the possibility of the EMP attack keeps risk planners up at night, but there is precious little evidence of it. A supply of non-perishable food (and a method of heating it), water and cash are basic preparations and relatively easily realized. Friday, July 22, 2022
  2. Lloyd Behendt Lloyd Behendt learned on a USAF fam trip years ago that all international bank timing times with GPS clocks... another way to snarl things would be to somehow take GPS down, not totally familiar with their architecture, but struck me as quite a way to take life as we know it today, down... hope our spysats are keeping up Friday, July 22, 2022
  3. Nick Kaplan Nick Kaplan I knew a fellow who made vacuum tube communications systems for the FAA and other agencies just because of EMP. He made a nice living with outdated technology. Saturday, July 23, 2022