Russian Writer and Journalist Israel Shamir on Information Security

In this exclusive interview Israel Shamir, an internationally acclaimed radical spiritual and political thinker, Internet columnist and writer, joins Andrey Pavlov from Technology IQ to discuss his insights on Information Security ahead of the Information Security, Russia 2013 Forum.

Technology IQ: Hello, dear listeners. IQPC and its subsidiary Technology IQ are pleased to welcome you. This interview is taking place in anticipation of the Information Security Forum, Russia 2013. My guest today in the studio is the renowned writer and journalist, in Russia and abroad, Israel Shamir. Israel, please say a few words about yourself for our listeners and readers.

I Shamir: What is probably best for the readers is to see the books that I have written, and to visit my website at israelshamir.net, where my articles and books are available in a number of different languages. I am the type of person who writes a lot, and I try to express my opinion on various relevant issues.

Technology IQ: Great, thank you very much. Today we would like to hear your opinion on a very specific issue – one that concerns information security – and that is cyber warfare. It is no secret to anybody that we live in an era of cyber warfare, an era where information plays a key role, and is the primary tool that influences people’s thoughts. Would you agree with this opinion?

I Shamir: Yes, indeed. It is happening because most people have been removed from their natural habitats and are living in cities, and do not generally interact with the rest of the world. People see the world on television and read about it in newspapers, while others learn about it on the Internet. That is, they have an extensive second-hand knowledge of the world. This is a very new phenomenon that people did not face in the past. And at the same time we have encountered a loss of traditional authorities that used to be able to coordinate an understanding of the world. Man has been faced with a one-on-one machine de force of agitation and propaganda that, as a rule, can be broken down and turned against him by a single person. There is a struggle happening between several information systems for influence over, and control of the people. In this sense there is a new paradigm, and a new era, in which there is a new battle and a new target, and this target is subjected to this kind of information pressure.

Technology IQ: Let’s talk about information technologies, which have become increasingly prevalent in people’s lives today. Human life has increasingly moved into the realm of virtual information, and people have developed a dependency on the virtual environment. Many aspects of people’s lives have become public through social networks and the like. What is your attitude to this fact? Do you consider it to be a potential threat? And if yes, why?

I Shamir: We live in a very complex era in which normal things are disappearing, and it seems that the virtual world is displacing the natural environment. This may be impossible. It appears to be a vacuum. There are many vacuums in our lives. Take for example an ordinary urban family, which has no close or immediate relatives. They have no priest or anybody of the sort that they visit. People are more familiar with the cast of “Santa Barbara” or other television dramas than they are with actual living people. There is this vacuum that, in a sense, is predominant. When we discuss the dangers of such a vacuum, they are also not altogether prevalent. Danger is a vacuum, but that which the vacuum is trying to replace is natural, because the nature of a vacuum is to overcome completely. It would be best for us to deal with the vacuum and not the effect that it has. If there were no vacuum, its effect would not be so difficult to prevent.

Technology IQ: Thank you. Where do you think such a vacuum comes from? After all, humanity evolves and technological advance is inevitable. Wouldn’t we like to believe that what we are seeing is some kind of intellectual progress? Which historical factors do you think have caused such a vacuum in people’s lives?

I Shamir: It is primarily urbanization, which has been the result of the last 100 years of human development. It is this and the high mobility of the population, as well as the lack of regular employment, which is especially prevalent in the West, but is also on the rise in Russia. If we look at the twenties, thirties and forties of the twentieth-century, we see that some characteristics of the rural environment have disappeared. People moved on to factories, where they worked as a team. Now even these factories are no longer in existence. Man’s loneliness has become simply appalling, and this is exactly the reason for the vacuum’s emergence. Gone is the environment in which man is busy, in which he resides normally. Vanished is the village where he once lived, as is the landscape in which our parents grew up. It is in this sad and lonely space that man has found himself alone with himself and with his fate.

Technology IQ: Thank you, Israel. The next question concerns the modern world – the here and the now. The world was shaken when it learned of the global surveillance taking place on everyday civilians. Ordinary people, especially those in western countries, never expected that security services were able to conduct the type of surveillance that infringes on their privacy rights, as democratic institutions tend to not condone activity of such nature. On the other hand, governments have justified these actions by saying that they are necessary to prevent the threats of terrorism. Others say that it is unacceptable and that freedom of privacy and identity must remain inviolable. What do you think? Is there any chance of a compromise?

I Shamir: I do not believe in an actual threat of terrorism. In my opinion it is something completely fictional. Terrorism and terrorists are simply PR agents for security services. There is no real concern for them. Think of the United States, where more people have died from falling over their television sets than from terrorist attacks. That is all there is to say about the horrors of terrorism, which is just trumped-up fiction used to justify huge budgets and fears, and the excessive amounts of money at the disposal of special services. Security services are a relatively new phenomenon, and such services never existed anywhere in the early twentieth century in the capacity that they do today. This is a new breakthrough in human evolution. It is quite grim. As far as compromise goes, I believe that when my grandfather was asked if he had any disputes with the Soviets, he replied, “the only dispute is of an agrarian nature: who will bury who in the ground.” That is what I think of the security services and the people: it is a question of agriculture. Security services should be fought as the real enemy.

Technology IQ: Thank you very much. In light of what you said it is quite interesting to consider those individuals who are fighting against the system – people like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who have used information as a tool to fight the war that is happening now. Russia has granted temporary asylum to Edward Snowden. How do you assess this measure that has been taken by Russian authorities?

I Shamir: I think it is wonderful. This is one of the biggest events of recent times. It is no secret to anybody that the debate about the extent to which Russian authorities act independently of the world community is on-going in Russia. Though, Russia’s tendency to do so, when viewed in Western circles, is labeled differently. Some believe that this is derivative of bank capital, while others see it as the efforts of security services, and so on. The question lies in the extent to which Russia acts independently. And if we need proof of this, there you have it. I completely admire and applaud this decision, and believe that this is one of the most interesting things that has happened in recent times. When we consider people like Snowden, Assange, and others, I totally admire them. These are the heroes who have taken on very difficult tasks. Snowden is somebody who crossed over from the authorities to the people, a defector. A defector not from the west to the east – for people like these have also appeared – but one who took the side of the people. It is wonderful that such people exist. Julian Assange was never on the side of the authorities – he was a free agent, somebody who took his own position, drew the line, and tried to break the conspiracy of silence. He tried to uncover what was in fact happening, and to expose the hypocrisy of the American political system. That is, he has done quite a lot. But he had predecessors who had done the same thing. Recall Daniel Ellsberg, who brought the world the Pentagon Papers, and other great men. We cannot but mention Manning in this situation. These are all great men who took on excruciating tasks and were willing to suffer.

Technology IQ: Israel, many believe that these men did not act independently, but are rather agents of some interest groups. As far as I understand, you do not agree with this view. Please tell us what you would say to those who do not believe in the sincerity of these people’s motives.

I Shamir: I believe the opposite. These people acted, and only then did interest groups stand up behind them. That is, what we saw first was free will, somebody’s decision to do something. Once something is said and done, the support of others is inevitable. There are very few things that one can do and retain sole credit for them. Those things that we do not do are praised, as in the case of St. Francis of Assisi, or they can be shunned, as in the case of Marquise de Sade. Whatever the circumstances may be, people come forth who will approve of these things. The same is true today. A person who exposes the schemes of special services will find followers who will line up behind him, and maybe at some point it will seem that they encouraged him. But in fact they only recognized and supported him.

Technology IQ: Thank you Israel. You have worked with Wikileaks and are acquainted with its founder Julian Assange. Could you tell our listeners a bit about your relationship?

I Shamir: When Julian and Wikileaks acquired the large quantity of documents from the Department of State which, as we now know, was the archive appropriated by Manning, the question arose of how to handle them. I was one of the people who worked on the plethora of data. There were people from Latin America, and from various European countries, and it turns out, that none of us could understand the totality of the problem. It was clear that everything was connected, but we could not determine just how it was. As somebody who was familiar with Russia and Russian politics, I could understand the manner in which these things were connected to Russia. I helped Wikileaks decipher these dispatches, interpret them, and then arrange them in print. One of my main tasks was a struggle, a conflict of information, because at the same time I was reading these dispatches, so was another man, Luke Harding, a correspondent for the Moscow newspaper, “The Guardian,” which was quite anti-Russian. He and his newspaper primarily used these dispatches as a means of combating Russia’s tendency to act independently. That is, he used each of these dispatches to demonstrate how awful Russia is, and how everything there is unbearable. But he achieved this by distorting and by censoring, and in this sense, one of my main tasks was find the dispatches that he published, determine how he augmented them, and demonstrate for Russian readers what was actually contained in these dispatches. So, publishing these dispatches was not the end of the information war, but was in fact only the beginning. And this of course, was a very interesting aspect of it. Julian Assange himself is a very interesting man, a deep thinker, a man with complex and interesting views. It is truly unfortunate that he has long been practically imprisoned. Yes, he is sitting in a luxurious cell, but it is still just that, a cell. It was always engaging to listen to him. I recall my conversations with him as one of the most important events of my life.

Technology IQ: Thank you. As we consider information warfare, from our conversation, it becomes clear that there are targets for these wars, and that there are groups and individuals that are making resistance efforts. In your opinion, what is the future of information warfare, and what can we do as ordinary people under these difficult circumstances?

I Shamir: This issue has many layers, not unlike a cake. If you understand it thoroughly, then of course you have to relinquish mankind from these diseased vacuums, and once again give him the opportunity to plant some roots, and settle into a normal life. As the wonderful female French philosopher Simone Weil once wrote, “rooting,” or, as she called it, “enracinement,” is bearing in mind that people must once again rediscover their roots, and expel the vacuum. That is to say, on a deep level. But there are things that are far more simple and practical that are necessary for mankind today. We still live under governments and in large groups. In addition, all of us feel pressures and resist attempts at our being brainwashed. There is also the struggle for resources that remains constant. And in the course of this struggle it becomes clear that those who can completely control information can ultimately determine the fate of the world, and can very much regulate that which happens in the world. And for the people that this affects, the first task is to battle with the ever-hostile enemy, who can conditionally be identified as the NSA (the United States National Security Agency), which has now appeared on the horizon. How can we protect our data so that such American agencies cannot get a glimpse of what is in our cards? At a basic level the world is a big table at which everybody is playing a hand in poker – we have to prevent others from getting a glimpse at our hand, because those who see what we have will surely beat us. The consequences would be disastrous because the flow of money and resources would go to the United States, and the rest of the world would remain poor and ragged, and resort to begging from their porch stoops. We do not want this; we want a different world. We do not a world in which information dominates. It is very important to function on a simple, understandable and human level. And in this sense Edward Snowden has brought an unexpected gift to Russia, as he is one of the few who is aware of the necessity for, and has implemented a means of global surveillance. Let’s hope that he can somehow teach his adoptive side how to prevent attacks in information warfare. But the battle is on – it is what we live with, and it is multi-layered. As the forces of an omnipresent Western media attempt to impose their views on the world community on any issue, this is an ideological struggle. And should they not impose, they can at least curb their views so as to set the framework in which we can work something out. Here is an environment for battles and for ideologists, and for programmers and for people with technical skills, as well as for people with humanitarian inclinations. A great battle is taking place, which is in a sense what we are engaged in.

Technology IQ: Thank you Israel for a very interesting interview. I hope that we can continue to discuss this topic during our forum, and in particular during the session “Safety and privacy in the digital world: In search of compromise.” This discussion will bring together some very interesting people who are each in their own right freedom fighters for privacy in the digital world. I hope that you will take an interest and participate in our conference. Thank you very much.

For Technology IQ’s Information Security Russia Forum 2013 taking place from 22nd - 23rd October in Moscow, Russia. Go to www.informationsecurityrussia.com/english, email [email protected], or call the team on +44 207 036 1300.