AL UDEID AIR BASE, QATAR -- The two words “information” and “communication” are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through. If you think about it, we are the only species to develop a form of persistent communication and information sharing which can be traced all the way back to the original cave paintings. In fact, after cave paintings, we expanded the system into languages enabling the sharing of complex ideas, and even developed systems to abbreviate those complex ideas into simple flags. These flags were then used to communicate between ships and armies during early warfare. Fast forward a few thousand years and we invented the printing press which allowed us to mass produce and communicate a unified message across vast distances and reach the masses. Three hundred years after that we introduced the telegraph, which allowed us to communicate basic code across vast distances at the speed of light. The advances of the radio followed the model of the printing press allowing simultaneous distribution to mass audiences, but this time with personal delivery right into your living room. In 1977, the first cellphone was being used ushering in an age of mobility to compliment instantaneous access to communication, though I promise you it looked and weighed nothing like the phones we have in our pockets today. Now these might seem like a lot of advances but metaphorically speaking, this was only a leisurely walk to the train station when compared to today’s blur of technological advances whizzing by like so many trees standing still as the high-speed train passes by. From cave paintings conveying rudimentary concepts, to today’s frantic pace of data production there is simply no comparison. From the military perspective we look to this technology to remotely pilot aircraft, create “smart munitions”, with even the desktop computers we use everyday being viewed as weapon systems of destruction against our adversaries or points of fatal vulnerabilities our adversaries can turn against us.
You might be wondering how this history ties into grooming the next generation of cyber professionals. Simply put, if there weren’t unbound thinkers to create cave paintings, flag signals, printing presses or telegraphs, then possibly the article I am writing on this computer in Al Udeid would have never happened.
Though communications is old, we professionals operating in and through the cyber domain are in our infancy. The opportunity to be a visionary trailblazer like General Billy Mitchell was with the Air Force or advance technology as Steve Jobs has done is there for anyone’s taking. When considering the vast landscape of human endeavors driven by technological advances it is evident that there is no set formula or “easy button” solution for grooming a cyber minded professional. However, to be effective in the cyber domain one must possess the following qualities:
1. Innovative - As technology advances it becomes increasingly critical to be able to figure out how to effectively employ it. Today we have Xboxes that are 100 times more powerful than the space shuttle that brought human beings into orbit. The challenge is not to understand how we can push technology to be faster, but how to make something as powerful as the Xbox do something truly miraculous for the human condition versus refining our larceny skills in another adventure in Grand Theft Auto.
2. Problem solver – Computers are not easy to manage and they often seem to have minds of their own. A cyber professional both in the military and the civilian world will have to solve increasingly complex problems as we push computers to do more, to emulate judgment that we take for granted,
make leaps of intuition, and eventually make life or death decisions on behalf of their human creators in the next 5 years (try looking up the current state of autonomous driving cars).
3. Thrives in an unbounded and ever evolving environment – Cyber is fun! It is possibly the only field that allows you to touch land, water, air, space, and cyberspace all at once. A person walking in New York City with an iPhone, has the ability to talk to a friend on a cruise ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, get GPS enabled directions to the nearest Starbucks, adjust the temperature in their house in London, and email a friend flying 32,000 feet over Korea all at the same time.
4. Vision – The most important factor of a professional in the cyber domain is to have the ability to see and sell an exciting vision of tomorrow. With all of this new and cutting edge technology visionaries must actively analyze the current state of affairs and projected future changes to identify trends and actively solve problems.
We cannot know what tomorrow will look like. However, all of the great advancements of today started with someone simply closing their eyes, entering the unbounded landscape of their mind, solving a problem with a simple innovation and then communicating an inspirational vision of “the possible.” It all started with cave paintings…who knows what we can come up with if we instill these attributes in the next generation of cyber professionals.