Boyd on CyberWar

The hacking (cracking) attack on Google et al has caused a phenomenon that actually puts those companies and even countries at risk. Over the last year, the response by companies and countries to these cracking episodes has been to lock down their intranet/internet systems, filtering content and making access more restrictive. As an example, the Air Force Material Command, even after relenting on bans with certain types of social media, still enacts a robust filtering policy that continues to restrict blogs, wikis, and the like. Australia is even considering filtering incoming internet traffic echoing China and other totalitarian countries.

The giant risk of this fortress mentality is that it actually makes the organization less secure because it makes the organization less nimble. By enacting more security, an organization inevitably enacts more bureaucracy which creates friction and slows reaction ability to a grinding halt. This phenomenon is captured well in the Starfish and the Spider (I synopsize it here) and was a central tenet in John Boyd’s discussions on how armies win wars. I propose that rather than locking down access to the internet, organizations relinquish control and let employees, partners, and other supporter’s route crackers and malcontents via an organic set of decentralized tactics (this may already be taking place). Twitter is indeed mission critical. In cyber operations, observing, orienting, and acting faster than the adversary is the only way win.

Restraint and Failure

One of the key points to the FIST value concept is the idea of restraint. We believe restraint is absolutely essential for any project leader who values completing an effort quickly with the maximum amount of goodness. Lucky for us, this recent article in WIRED magazine highlights just how important restraint really is.

How Success Killed Duke Nukem

On a related note, it's fantastic to see a major publication acknowledging the value of failure (WIRED's Jan issue is all about failure). We often talk about the importance of failure and how the FIST values increase your chance of an optimal failure - were much is learned and little lost. I highly recommend the issue.

The Cult of FIST

One of the main rebuttals to our FIST concept is that it is incapable of producing the kinds of capabilities seen in weapon systems like the F-22 or an aircraft carrier. The argument is that these kinds of capabilities can only be produced by programs that are methodical, deliberate, systematic and massive. We often hear that FIST programs are cute and may be fine to fill stop gaps, but aren't sufficient to do the heavy lifting of developing and fielding "real" weapon systems.

But that's our point exactly. Weapon systems with tons of capabilities and features are overrated, if not useless, in the current state of warfare. We postulate that what the warfighter's really want and need is something that is Good Enough. Turns out defense isn't the only industry where this is true. WIRED just published an amazing article which could easily be our manifesto for FIST, The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine. An excerpt:

Military aircraft are experiencing their own version of the MP3 effect.

Why, if manned planes are so superior, is the Predator saturating the combat market?
[Their] ability to maintain a constant presence in the air. That's because the drones are relatively cheap to build, can fly for more than 20 hours straight, and don't require pilots who need sleep, food, and bathroom breaks (and who might die if the plane is shot down).

Piloted aircraft are still valuable......but because the Predator can linger, it has enabled a new type of strategy—remotely guided surgical strikes with fewer troops and armaments. It's a lesson that surprised the Air Force and other services, Mathewson says, but one that has been learned definitively.