Sensing the Web

My office uses WebSense, an internet content filter service. It has, for reasons inexplicable to me, blocked DanielPipes.org. It seems arbitrary to me, but in a world where there is a new URL a minute it seems an impossible task to create equitable blocking filters. It would almost make sense to have a system operator controlling content by ‘opting in’, but this would be more than a full time job.

In a larger sense of information warfare, it is totalitarian regimes that will keep information warfare from being effective, such regimes that will ban the publication of ‘offensive’ cartoons. It is anathema to a free society to block information content in the private sector, in a totalitarian society, it is an obligation.

I suspect that the actions to filter out the West that have been taken by China, North Korea, and Iran will reduce the bombardment of information on those societies, and by making information contraband, will make it eagerly sought after.

The perennial questions of information warfare states:

Deny, deceive, destroy, or exploit?

We can thank our adversaries that they have made the decision themselves.

“You can collect, analyze, and move your information faster than your opponent to get an edge. Or you can cutoff your opponent from his own information sources, distort his processing, or prevent him from issuing commands. You can fight the information war inside the weapon’s circuits, or inside the commander’s head. There is no single approach that is always the best, but the ultimate objective is always the same: collect, process, and apply information faster and better than your opponent. Whoever gets to the end of their OODA loop first gets to take the first shot. Bruce Berkowitz

It is the very insular nature of Islam that sets them back in technology. It is the craven application of violence that makes up that short coming. In the end, the West’s advantage in information processing will keep them ahead of the sheltered populace of a tyranny. The question is whether the tyrants deny themselves the same truth.