Quantum Hacking

The search for a unified theory of everything in contemporary physics stems in part from the fundamental inability to reconcile quantum physics and relativity theory. This has pushed research toward complex mathematical models such as string theory in an effort to model a single way of looking at everything. The same can be said of the distribution of power in networks and hierarchies. The individual person looks like one kind of thing when viewed in the context of a network and another kind of thing when viewed in the context of a hierarchy. This is analogous to describing a photon as both a particle and a wave. The context of our inquiry determines the content that results and the primary object of that inquiry, the “individual person,” is revealed to be a social construction, not an empirical fact. The lack of a unified theory of humanity and computing is one reason we experience cognitive dissonance today. The notion of the “individual person” is central to current debates about privacy, intellectual property, and the legality or illegality of network aggression (“black hat hacking”), but from the point of view of the distributed network, there is no individual person, there are only nodes in the network. In addition, we all inhabit nodes in multiple networks simultaneously. We can field any network-determined identity we choose but we do not determine an individual identityuntil we choose a network identity. That choice is made in the moment in which we act, so paradoxically, while context determines content, choice is always prior to context and creates it. Until we choose, it is impossible to predict with certainty which choice will be made and therefore what identity will be fielded. This is why security based on perimeter defense or authentication is by definition a failed model. This analysis has profound implications for traditional notions of free will, loyalty, citizenship, and security. It explains why hackers who evolve from working in online meritocracies to working in corporate structures literally become different people. It explains why a disciplined hierarchical structure like the military can use network centric warriors and fight networks with networks while maintaining a basic identity for the moment as the machinery of a nation state. It explains why perspective is worth fifty points of IQ and why perception management creates perspective. It provides one more example in support of Alfred North Whitehead’s assertion that “the major advances in civilizations are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.” We are in search of a unified theory of an emergent multi-nodal cyborg personality and how it exercises power. This theory must address hierarchical and distributed structures and what they mean for human identity, law, and global organization and geopolitical strategy. What are the genuine sources of our power? What is the point of reference from which that power is exercised? Who do we believe ourselves to be in the moment in which we act and how do we thereby define ourselves not in theory but in practice, not in the chat room but on the field of action? And finally, why is knowing that we are doomed to fail the key to victory? Richard Thieme shows how boundaries have morphed, power has been redefined, and The Matrix is more than a movie. Not since Blade Runner has a film described so well the territory that must be crossed. Owning our own souls is the ultimate intention of Third Generation Hacking, the only end that justifies the means. Thieme holds nothing back as he addresses the deeper implications of what it means to be the network. The stakes are high and the battle is worthy of our best efforts. This talk is a call to arms to accept responsibility for the life and death battle being waged for the hearts and minds of digital humanity.