[LINK] US and Australia Not Learning Online Defence

[Tom Worthington]

Greetings from the conference "Australia US Alliance Conference in 
Canberra Australia-US: The Alliance in an Emerging Asia" being held in 
Canberra today (and streamed live online): 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2014/06/australia-us-alliance-conference-in.html

The conference was opened by John Berry, United States Ambassador to 
Australia. Also speaking will be Julie Bishop, Australian Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, David Johnston, Minister for Defence, Tanya Plibersek, 
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, as well as assorted generals and 
former generals.

The organisers of the  conference have invited Tweeting with hashtag 
#Alliance21 and the event is being streamed and some speakers are by 
video-conference from the USA.  However, apart from that the event is 
relatively low-tech and very highly structured. This contrasts with the 
high-tech events I attend which have the technology more integrated and 
are more interactive and fluid. I suggest that event organisers need to 
incorporate some un-conference features to make the events more 
interesting and productive.

The same online working approach is also one which the US and Australian 
defence forces are yet to learn. The Internet is now a primary field for 
warfare, both in terms of direct cyber-warfare, attacking systems online 
and in terms of propaganda campaigns. Wars can now be lost by not 
defending online systems and by not being able to present a credible 
online threat to deter attack. Wars can also be lost by not being able 
to present the appropriate perceptions via social media. Worryingly 
other nations have shown more interest in cyber-warfare and even small 
terrorist organisations have shown greater ability to use the Internet 
to further their views online than have the USA and Australia.

More at: 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2014/06/australia-us-alliance-conference-in.html


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/