For the third theme of GCSP, we went over Security, and its relevance in modern and future societies, through two activities and a guest lecture.
For the first activity, each team was directed to create three individual threat scenarios, and provide the detailed structure as to how it would occur. Starting with the attacker's methods, we used the PDF given to establish a potential motivation as to why someone or an organization would want to create a threat in the first place. Then, we identified the attacker's methods, in which we would explain the process in which the attack would occur. Next, we created the attacker's resources, to establish what physical and mental capabilities the attacker had in order to follow through. Finally, we explained the human assets affected, describing how the victims of the attack would be affected. The threat scenario we discussed in class was a hacker had attacked someone's bank account in order to steal their wealth (motivation), by using creating a fake website/app that mimics the real bank website to induce a scam (method) that the attacker programmed with their expertise in financial hacking (resources), ultimately leading to the bank account owner's financial well-being becoming worse off (human assets). I thought the mix and match approach that the activity had set up was rather eye-opening, as there as such an incredible amount of ways that an attack can occur, and an incredible amount of reasons as to why they happen. This ultimately means that tackling the issue of complex crime in the real-world takes more effort than simple over-policing, as one must understand the reason and capabilities of attackers to properly address the issue at the root. For example, most members of terrorist organizations only joined in order to put food and water on their plate, along with the security guarantee from the organization. If establishments are set up to allow the youth of less wealthy societies to get access to stable jobs, it may disincentivize them from wanting to turn to terrorism in the first place. This was something we had discussed amongst our group prior to the explanation of our threat scenario. This experience has encouraged me to partake in an industry that deals with handling complex crime, as the demand is clearly still sky-high, despite the global anti-terrorist efforts that have only been apparently counterproductive. Security is the theme I am personally most interested in, and this activity only furthered it, as problem-solving is a task that I severely enjoy, but pairing it with the ability to save lives is something I want to pursue as a career. This activity helped me realize how complex the problem is, and thus the demand is higher than I had previously thought.
The second activity we did was dividing up the class to roleplay as each aspect of American society in 2025, where the country had been met with crisis, as the autonomous vehicle system in the country was malfunctioning. My role during this crisis, along with one other person, was media reporter, and I had asked questions to every other member of the society ranging from civilian all the way to President to allow the public to see what is going on during the crisis. Around every 5 minutes, we would display a quote from a certain figure to demonstrate the thoughts of the people, and to almost intentionally instigate issues across the country. The ability to create and twist narratives was one I found rather overwhelmingly addictive, as it almost forced the government to act on the issue faster to clear up "fake" news. Through this activity, the role of each society was made clear: the media, civilians, and organizations like FEMA are expected to hold politicians accountable, otherwise they will prioritize their own power at the expense of the society. There were numerous instances where government officials straight up refused to talk to the media, as they had not had their story straight yet. This mimics much of modern-day society, where journalists use their inability to get an interview against the subject, by explaining that their inability to talk is correlated with their inability to solve the crisis at hand. From my point of view, this divided up the media into two areas: some news outlets likely exist for the sake of creating chaos and buzzwords in order to keep listeners/viewers enticed, while others are genuinely using all resources to expose the truth to the public. Regardless, it made it clear to me that a career in media is not one suitable for me. Reporters are expected to constantly pursue interviews and events in order to report something, whether it be relevant or not, and stay up late nights completing reports with minimal compensation. Personally, I'd prefer a career in which I could apply my problem-solving skills opposed to creative writing, and not contribute to an industry that is likely the leading cause of government and social mistrust in the country
Finally, the theme discussion had ended with the lecture video from the asynchronous class. I had listened to the discussion by Dr. Paulo Shakarian, that focuses on cybersecurity related challenges and strategies for stopping cyber attacks. Dr. Shakarian had discussed two individual stories in the lecture. The first was about his time in Iraq, moving from North Baghdad. The plans for his team to move locations had been revealed, and thus they were expected an attack along the way. Dr. Shakarian isolated the most probable location of attack, and notified the team that the palm grove would require Air Force assistance. This prediction of the palm grove turned out to be true, as that was the location of attack. The second story was about being assigned to a group that was combining AI and big data to predict the most probable actions of terrorist groups. After going back to graduate school, he had decided to approach using the prediction software to combat cybersecurity. This ended up being commercially successful, as it was able to accurately rank and identify the most probable attack sites for a Fortune 500 company. It was rather interesting to see Computer Science play an essential role in creating his product and the origin story that it took to get to the product. Realistically, every business needs a way to ensure their software is secure, and this product provides a way to ensure that they can use their limited resources to target the most important ones. It demonstrates that while the issue of finding the most probable location of attack is not inherently one of Computer Science, it can still be used to approach it. This furthers two things: problems can be solved by having an entirely different subject approach, and that Computer Science can be applied in virtually any industry that requires problem solving, as it simply automates the process. This has made me more confident in my decision to major in CS, as the demand for it will exist in any industry, indicating that the necessity for jobs will always exist, and furthermore I can still work in any industry I prefer. This specific lecture tailors to what I want to do as a career, helping solve complex crime on a large scale, and seeing that CS has such a prominent role in doing so, I feel more confident in my major.