Global Guerrillas

The London Terrorist Attack and the JCC Bomb Threats

Jewish Community Center Bomb Threats

Last summer I wrote about how hacking the phone system could be used to automate terrorism.  That analysis is proving to be spot on.  Today, we learned that a 19 year old American-Israeli living in Israel, hacked satellites and phone equipment to make 120 fake bomb threats Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) in the US, Australia, and New Zealand.  

Further, the timing, target type, and number of threats led to the successful exploitation of a social systempunkt (the most vulnerable part of a complex network).   In this case, the attack exploited anti-Trump media narratives to label the President as an anti-semite. It worked.    

London Terrorist Attack

Last summer, I wrote extensively about how ISIS was using social networking innovatively to remotely activate terrorist attacks around the world.  In short, this new model did away with the training, planning, and support required for traditional attacks.  This lack of communication makes an attack very hard to detect.  

Here's how they did it:

• Planning, preparing, and executing an attack on your own is a rite of initiation into ISIS. 
• An online pledge of fealty to the Caliph (Facebook live video or post) during or just before the attack connects the attack to ISIS.
• Upon seeing the attack and the pledge, ISIS will immediately accept the attacker as a 'soldier of the Islamic state.'

Since I wrote about this method, we've seen ISIS make a wholesale shift to it as this NYT graphic shows:

How does this relate to the attack in London?  

London appears to fit the my model for online activation.  We'll know for sure when we get confirmation when we find an online pledge of fealty by the attacker.

Sincerely,

John Robb

PS:  Since I first wrote about this model last year, lots of attacks using it have been made.  It's now possible to ask the question: Is online activation more effective than planned attacks?

The attacks appear to be as large as planned attacks. e.g.
Orlando: 49
Nice: 86
Istanbul: 39

They also appear to be more numerous, more geographically dispersed, far harder to detect/foil (fewer attacks prevented), and nearly costless.   This suggests that online activation is a more successful method than planned/coordinated attacks.

Some More Thoughts on Automating Populism

Here's some more thinking on how Trump (with Bannon's help) could (~will) use social networking to turn the populist insurgency that got them into the White House into a dynamic (or extremely dangerous, depending on your perspective) political force.

• A transition to a networked political party is likely to happen first in populist movements like Trump's.  The rest of the political spectrum will follow quickly thereafter.
  
  
• Within a handful of years after its emergence, all political parties will be networked parties.  
  
  
• These networked parties will all feature direct democracy via smartphone voting.  This will make it possible for party members to decide how their political representatives vote.  Is this potentially dangerous?  Sure.  However, direct democracy is one of the few ways to rapidly rebuild the legitimacy of a system that has lost it.  
  
  
• Trump has a significant first mover advantage.  He is one of the few politicians/parties able to tie party votes on the network to real world decisions at the highest level.  
  
  
• The "Trump party app" will only work if it is limited to Trump supporters.  Only Trump supporters can use the app to vote on important political decisions that Trump makes in the White House.  

How Trump and Bannon Could Automate Populism

We live in a world where we can get nearly everything instantly.  

Instant information.  Instant entertainment.  Instant communications.  Instant transactions.    

Simply and rightly, we have come to expect our decisions to yield instant results from the systems that serve us.  

Well, that's true for every system except our political system.    

We're only allowed to interact with our political system, in a meaningful way, only once every two years and only then by filling out a multiple choice quiz in an election booth.  

That's akin to an Internet that only available for a couple of hours every two years at 1,200 baud.   

It's crazy in this day and age.  Worse, there's increasing evidence it is driving us crazy.   We are filling the time in between these electoral events with around the clock political warfare.  A ceaseless drumbeat of outrage and conspiracy, amplified by the online echo chambers we spend our time in.

Fortunately, I don't believe this disconnect will last long.   A form of direct democracy is coming.  One that lets people directly influence the decisions of the people they send to Washington.

A form of interactive democracy that doesn't require any changes to the constitution since it works at the party level and not the national.  

When it does, it's going to hit us fast, taking off like wildfire since it fulfills a fundamental need that the current system does not provide. 

Here's a quick example from the perspective of the Trump insurgency.  Other political parties would need different approaches, but they could if done in the right way (simple approach, scaled quickly by using disruptive marketing, grow from there), grow as quickly as this.  

Here's how quickly populism can be automated:

• Trump or Bannon picks an issue: the narrower and more inflammatory (disruptive marketing) the better.  Make the vote a yes or no.
• Trump asks his supporters to tell him what they want (he doesn't ask those opposing him). 
• His supporters download the app to their smart phones and vote.  
• A little programming and marketing magic radically improves the number of Trump supporters using the app and reduces spammers/non-supporters attempting to skew the vote down to a trickle.
• Millions of Trump supporters download the app and vote.  
• Once the decision is in, the app makes it easy to call or spam message to the user's Congressional representatives.  Millions of calls roll in.  
• A bill that codifies that issue is fast tracked in Congress.  Massive pressure via the app and the White House gets it passed quickly.
• Connecting action and results quickly generates buzz.  Repeat.  This time with 10 m downloads.  
• The app evolves. The pressure from the network increases.  It consumes the Republican party.

Notice how the system, in a barebones fashion, could become a staple of governance nearly overnight.  

Notice too how this doesn't in any way change the system of governance that is already in place.  It's a plug and play upgrade (for many and something deeply scary downgrade to many).  

Regardless, networked politics is coming.  It won't matter if you like it or not.   It's inevitable.

How networked politics evolves from this humble beginning is the tricky part.  

Get it wrong and we're making the same mistakes we did with the governance of the nation-state prior to WW2 or in replacing feudal with representative governments -- it could end in horrific violence.  

Get it right and we could zoom forward economically, socially, and culturally.

Sincerely,

John Robb

PS:  This example is barebones.  I've left out most of the nuance.  If you want that, you will need to hire me to help you design and build it.  I'm an idealist, but I'm also a mercenary capitalist.  

A BIG Start-up Opportunity in Politics?

The New York Times pointed out yesterday that Trump ran his candidacy like an Internet start-up.  His goal was to use Internet technology to disintermediate the established system (parties, media, etc.) of getting a President elected.  Bannon even brought into the team start-up culture mantras:

"move fast and break things"

“figure out what needs doing, and then just do it. Don’t wait for permission.”

I agree and I've been saying something similar for a year. 

However, I have one important caveat. Unlike wildly successful Internet start-ups, Trump didn't build a technological platform.  Instead, he ran an open source political insurgency using social networking.

While open source insurgencies are extremely powerful (they have toppled governments and fought wars), they are very difficult to govern with.  For example, open source insurgencies dissolve into infighting without an active enemy to fight.  Trump's work around for this has been labelling the media as the opposition party and generating controversy. 

Because Trump's start-up didn't build any technology, he doesn't have a cohesive social network to synergistically unite his political supporters.  A synergy that could turn it into a dominant political force.  It's still operating in open source insurgency mode (something Steve Bannon understands in his bones). 

This means there is still a massive opportunity available.  

An opportunity to build the first political social network that replaces a traditional party apparatus.  One that operates completely different than any political party we've had in this country.  

A political platform that provides direct participation (think apps) in the political process on a daily or hourly basis rather than once every two years.    

A platform that could grow to 60 m active participants in less than two years.  

A platform that establishes norms of conduct and expectations of the future rather than rips them down.  

A political network that allows us, as a country, to aspire to greatness again. 

Sincerely,

John Robb

PS:  This window of opportunity will close fast.  Anyone could launch the moonshot to get this done and before it even comes out of stealth alpha, the competition could be over.  

PPS:  This is likely to be a phase transition in our political system.  This means that any errors at the start are amplified manyfold downstream (think in terms of bad assumptions built into the US Constitution that haunted us later in our history).