Information Warfare - II

I had very good feedback on the last post I made on Information Warfare - so here's round 2! Post may be a little 'direct' so do ignore some of the harshness.

"Communication dependency" is the in-thing.
(please read the whole rant, it's relevant)

Earlier we used to have drug dependency, alcohol dependency, etc - but now as technology evolves and people psychologically evolve, we have a LOT of people getting pleasure from pure communication. 

Correct me if this schedule is wrong:

• (Wake up): Check phone for missed calls, SMS, other instant messages, etc
• (On the way to work): Chatter with friends over IM, or phone and SMS the living tar out of them
• (At work): Check facebook, linkedin, instagram, pinterest, (insert social media site here). (Yes its actually not allowed at work either)
• (On the way back from work): Bore the crap out of friends with today's office escapades. Including how that chick on facebook was a troll...
• (Before bedtime): AT A TIME WE SHOULD BE PRAYING TO GOD TO BLESS US WITH INTELLECT - no but we'll be on the phone again.

This is called social mania - not social media. The number of people that behave abnormally if their phone is not right next to them - you'd think we're babies vying for a bit of mum's attention. Except - wait this is an inanimate thing and instead of genuinely meeting friends, we depend completely and totally on 'digital communication' as a means of .. any communication. 

Why this relevant. I'm sure you know what "withdrawal symptoms" are. Usually includes exhaustion, body pains, headaches, sometimes fever & nausea, overall feeling of sickness like the life is being drained out of you. 

Now - if the 'war' starts - and imagine all communication is turned off. 

Morning: (no signal),
Afternoon (no signal),
At work: (no signal, no internet),
On the bus: (no signal),
Night before sleeping (no signal). And I bet we'll then pray to the Almighty asking for communication to be restored ;-)

But really, consider what would happen. Majority of the people living in this 'virtual life' will end up with withdrawal symptoms. A great way to cripple the people for at least 1-2 weeks. The side effect is obvious - rioting, high tempers, robberies, homicides, all kinds of abnormal, maybe even horrific things - i.e. the usual behaviour of addicts in withdrawal...

Harsh, and maybe it won't be all that bad, but we do need to 'wean' ourselves off our technology a bit so we're not dependent / addicted to communication. When a techie - who loves technology and works on tech day-in and day-out says this; you better believe it. 

There's a simple test for what the effect of this kind of Information Warfare will be in your life. Keep your phone, laptop, mac, PC, internet off for FULL 48 hours, do not read the newspaper (assume there is none). Try it on a weekend and tell me - doesn't it feel crippling?

I'll write next time on how information warfare can be used to cause mass starvation, incapacitate mass transit... or worse. 

Chaitanya Dhareshwar is a certified Cyber Crime Investigator. His BS is often painful to hear, but strikingly true. If you have complaints about it, please refer it to [email protected] thank you.