Weird Cyber Publicity

A couple of (extended) publicity posts have come across my feed the first one is from the Shawn Ryan Show (Note: I think Ryan in general is in the vein of trying to embrace the “tacti-cool bro” part of ex-spec ops media personalities that have spawned). The interview is with David Tice who financed the “documentary” Grid Down, Power Up. I’m intensely suspicious of this “documentary” before even watching it (I want to do another post and/or video on it at some point). This is largely because Tice is primarily an investor from his biography, which makes me question his credibility to speak on the issue effectively. But in addition to this the public relations campaign he’s on regarding the movie speaks more to “selling” an issue than his trying to effectively solve it. If you’re trying to solve the issue, lobby congress, work with CISA, hell work with Dragos or other established players in the space to solve the issue, adding the documentary doesn’t add anything new to the conversations that subject matter experts have been having for decades at this point and only adds to “fear porn” despite claims that that’s not what the “documentary” is.

The other one that came across is this Youtube video by John Coogan with the TOTALLY NOT provocative title of “China Will Defeat The USA Unless…”. Coogan is a serial entrepreneur and is currently an “Entrepreneur in Residence” at Founders Fund, a science/tech venture capital firm. There sure seems to be a weird correlation between VC bros and shilling with fear mongering. But the argument that Coogan makes is that the US is falling behind in terms of production and manufacturing going through the history of consolidation that the military-industrial complex went through in the 90s, and then takes a VERY weird turn in arguing that the US needs to invest more in software/startups in order to win the next conflict. Coogan also suspiciously sets up Anduril (brainchild of Palmer Luckey of Occulus VR fame) as an ideal startup that will somehow help solve the problems the US has with production. In an interview on the Realignment Podcast last year Ret. General Dan Bolger defined victory conditions as 1. Whoever holds the battlespace and 2. Whoever killed the most people (20:40 seconds into the interview). Coogan’s startup/VC bro software idealism does nothing to satisfy those conditions that historically define victory. Software (much like cyber) can augment battle capabilities, but at the end of the day it’s soldiers, sailors, airman, marines, coasties, and guardians that will find, hold, and defend(or attack) a space…not software.

Long story short, I’m not a fan of people trying to sell things in generalities and fear.