Marine Systems and Cyber Conflict – The Inevitability Curve EP12

This is Textron tv. Hello, my name is Chris Blas. I am your host for another episode of the Inevitability Curve podcast, where we take interesting folks and we try to, upon an interesting topic, talk about where it's been in the past, how we got to where we are today, what today actually looks like, and with that, with any look, try to intuit things about the future.

So, with me today is Heather McMahon, who is certainly an interesting and fascinating person, and the fact that you just a moment ago said you may not be, as we were just discussing, proves you are. So thanks for your time, Heather. Good to see you.

Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate being, uh, included in your circle and, um, I, I look forward to this conversation. Well, it's, you know, like we were just talking about in the Green Room, it's a, it's a funny circle, right?

You know? Yeah. I'm, you know, look at your background.

You, you know, anybody can, can look you up. We're not gonna go into great long bios and so forth. But you have to sort of recognize, you know, the, the interesting path you've been on, right?

And you got to hear, you know, you've just come out of public service, I think fairly recently. You, you know, working in the private sector now, and you're looking at your own future, you know, like, you know, given I have these things, given that I've been following this path, I'm here now. Gosh, you know, is a, it's a fascinating future, right?

It is the thread we talk about here, right? So, Absolutely. Absolutely.

You know, I, I do think it's, um, sometimes I think like, how did I, you know, I think we all think, how did I get here? Like, why did this happen? Um, you know, and, uh, I mean, each, each like individual step is like, well obvious when given that opportunity, one would do this, you know?

But if you, you know, rewind back, you know, uh, you know, to when, when you were a young person, um, I don't know all these possibilities. You know, on one hand there seemed to be unlimited possibilities. And on the other hand, like, you couldn't imagine what, you know, could be, um, I know, I think one of the awesome things about now is that, um, you know, because of all the technology by the way that you have, um, unleashed on us all, Chris, is that, um, people can connect about a lot of things that you wouldn't, you know, have been able to connect about before.

And, you know, when I talked to, um, young people, you know, will approach me like, Hey, you know, how do I do this? How did I do that? Um, and they kind of want like a cookie cutter.

Some of them do, you know, how do I reproduce, you know, X, y, or Z? And I think the real answer is you can't, because every individual is different. Every road condition, you know, or environmental condition, um, acting on a person is different.

Um, but in my view, like the best thing you can do is be curious. Listen a lot, learn as much as you, you know, can along the way. Um, you know, hold to a few, you know, important, you know, be, be good to others, some golden rule, you know, uh, sort of stuff.

And, um, as long as you're moving towards something that's meaningful, um, then, you know, it's, it's gonna work out in the end. And, you know, you're, you and everyone else, you know, will be surprised. Um, but I'll caveat that with saying, I have no idea where I'm going.

And I love this ride. So I, I, it's, you know, I can't help the nautical analogies, right. You know, so I'm back on the boats.

I took the summer off, uh, and the, the hurricane came along, messed 'em up. I came back. I had to, you know, do silly things to make them alive again and sailed them 11 kilometers up to where I am right now.

And every day I do little things to, to build them up, but I'm going to, to the Florida Keys over the winter, and that's 300 miles sailing south through the Intracoastal, through the Miami Metroplex and so forth. And I've done multiple times now, so I know the whole path. But, you know, I, I have a general goal of being in the Keys, you know, um, around December.

Now, the details of that, I don't know, we'll find out. And that's kind of the fun part, right? And That is exactly how I love to take a vacation.

Like, don't plan out every moment I'm going to this country, you know, plan the very, very basics, but then just go And, yeah. Well, and, and so, so, so again, you know, you've had such an interesting background. We can talk about all sorts of things.

You're, um, working with a company called Kraken these days is making autonomous vessels and so forth, won't get into the present of the future just yet. Um, and you, you spent your career working with Department of Defense, military conflict, you know, um, uh, oriented things. And of course, I've been doing security forever.

So there's a, a shared thread of boats and security. But if we look back, right, I like to, to take these, these curves and make 'em as long as possible, because we get lost in these little things that in the last five days or five years, or during my lifetime or whatnot. But most of these things, you know, that are, that are bounding our, our opportunities individually and are guiding the past, we're all pulling together, have been going on a long, long time.

Yeah. Right? And these boats and the, you know, autonomous vessels you're working with and so forth, and all the security work we've done in our, in our lives are all artifacts of, of things people have been doing for thousands of years, at least.

Right? So it's not that new. And, you know, we, what we, well, let's take boats and, and conflict and, and military applications over time.

You know, we have thousands of years of records of how these have been developed and deployed and used in the conflict. People always get in. Um, they lead us to the point where we're at right now.

We're talking about this before this. One of my favorite things to say, you know, to, to sort of get people thinking about this remodel that I've been working on, is that everything we know about boats is an artifact of post World War II manufacturer. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, escapes the materials, the marinas, the business models around them is not necessarily good or bad, or right or wrong. It is just come to 1950s, we had had all this tooling and process in place, and therefore we have the boats that we all recognize, you know? Yeah.

Sailboats with a draft is big, and motor boats with the motors in the back, and so on and so forth. But if you look at boats over all of human history, that's just a little blip. And what they look like today isn't, I don't think at all what they look like tomorrow.

And the analogies in that maritime analogies to every other, uh, uh, areas. Uh, Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

It's, it's inevitable that, that, you know, the form factors, you know, and, uh, you know, everything about them, you know, uh, will, will change. Um, you know, I'd even back out of boats for a minute. Like, I, I mean, I'll tell you, I, uh, I joined the army instead of the Navy because I figured out that, um, I could walk a heck of a lot further than I could swim.

Um, plus no one can figure out the Navy ranks anyway. But, um, anyway, but I think the wider, um, not just autonomy, um, but security technology is changing everything for everyone, like every human individual, um, whether you're in the military or not, whether you're involved in, you know, defensive, um, security focused activities or not. All of these, um, all of this change is, is coming for all of us and has, has gotten a lot of us, and will and will change, um, many of the things that we traditionally, you know, took for granted.

I mean, you know, in the future, boats, you know, will be different. Um, you know, and with all due respect to our aviator, uh, friends, um, you know, uh, yep. Pilotless, uh, you know, uh, you know, autonomous without a pilot, um, uh, folk things, even, you know, cars and everything else, um, that'll be more and more, um, you know, more and more the, the only way to go, um, and the most reasonable way to go.

Um, though I'm not saying that we'll ever get rid of the human 'cause we shouldn't. 'cause I mean, what else? That's us.

Um, yeah, let's, um, let's stay in there. Uh, give a couple cheers to the wetware. Um, but, um, you know, there just so many things are changing, and you can read a lot now about, um, you know, activity.

We won't go into too much depth on, you know, what's happening in Ukraine and, you know, um, and with the Houthis and, uh, and everything, but now with everything in the world being instrumented and og, you know, and, uh, recorded and observed, um, they're just different opportunities, different opportunities to attackers, which you, you really know well on the cyber side, but also in the physical domain and also, you know, supply chain attack and of a whole range of things. And, you know, different opportunities for different actors to impose overwhelming force at a particular, and very highly specific, uh, point in time. And, um, each of us, whether or not we know that is participating in that economy, um, because a lot of the ability to instrument record, you know, and target is embedded in your commercial technology that you all live with.

You know, starting with these darn things. You know, we, it used to be that you needed, you know, um, you needed advanced technology in order to beacon somebody, you know, or to record and observe them. Well, now we all beaconed ourselves.

And with, uh, new, uh, technologies being added to the phone you've already purchased daily, um, almost anyone with a little wherewithal can, uh, hot mic you, you know, get your geolocation and use that information in ways that may benefit you and may not. Um, and back to your bulk point, that's one of the things that put the big, giant, lovely boat, you know, that, that really saved the day in World War II and projected force, you know, around the world from then un until now, it's contested. Um, but the new opportunities need to be developed to defend those things, to defend the folks that work on them, but also, um, allow them to benefit from the upsides of technology and allow them to handle the workloads that are headed, that are headed their way.

But I've said a lot, well, were, You know, as I've thought about this stuff for you, not just 30 years, but as a kid in Colorado in the early seventies, I was thinking these same, same things like automated cars, you know, just watching the Jetsons, I guess, I don't know where know where the idea came from, but I, I started saying to people, it's like, you know, when we're grandparents, our grandkids are gonna say, tell me again how you used to pilot a car at 70 miles an hour, you know, three feet away from everybody else, you know, grand grandpa, because that's so crazy. It's like everybody, literally, everyone was out there like speeding. We let everyone drive their own way.

Yes, we did. Right? Yeah.

So, like, so I've always thought, and in fact, I one, yeah. Not that I worry about, you know, safety that much, but, you know, it's safer. You know, I'm a terrible driver.

I mean, I'm really, really, yeah. I'm a good human driver, right? You know, something catches my attention.

I can do really good at it, but I know over periods of, you know, tens of hours, you know, not pay attention, sneeze, drink my coffee, and otherwise do things that, that an automated car won't do. So I'd like to get the human completely out that, but the, you know, but you say that and free people out, right? And this is really my iterative theme about all these inev inevitability is that cameras are going to be everywhere early 1990s.

Oh no, I don't want it. Oh my God. I don't want it.

It's like ring doorbells, I'm sorry. Yes, you do. And you're okay with it, right?

Yeah. If you live in a small town, you already know that privacy is inside your house. 'cause you walk out in the backyard and everybody at the barbershop knows about it before you're inside, right?

And, and, uh, you know, we can say ai, drones, autonomy and so forth, but you know, what we're seeing, what we're seeing in conflict right now, drones, and, you know, we'll talk about that. You know, Ukraine has, uh, has instrumented, you know, that conflict and instrumented things that a lot of people been talking about for a long time. You know, there's a classic video, slaughter bots, I think seven, eight years ago got circulated.

You know, it's a group of scientists made a really nice produce piece showing these little quad coped drones, you know, doing this terrible stuff, um, at scale. And at the time I said, you know, that is scary. And yes, it is possible with today's technology, and yes, it's gonna happen.

Yeah. Now what? Right?

Instead of saying, I don't want, it's like, okay, maybe, but it's gonna happen. What are I gonna do? I think there are defenses against those sort of things in conflict themselves.

We're literally seeing those play out. Um, and for the rest of us, in normal day of life, there's policy, right? Is where InfoSec people are, can help.

It's like, yes, we can deepen your phones and everything else. And frankly, if I was in Russia, I would, you know, be even more fatalistic about it, because obviously, you know, the, the Russian government in intelligence service doesn't have controls. And if they somebody wants to py me in the government, they just can't.

Yeah. And I've never worked in pub us in public service. I've worked with US federal government a great deal.

I believe, you know, people like yourself who, who, uh, explained to me how this works, and it's not, and n NSA analyst can't just look you up and not report it, right? Yeah. Policies, yeah.

There are a lot of controls, you know, to prevent abuses. And, um, I think most people, you know, that don't know would be really surprised and uplifted to see, um, all of the effort that goes into making sure, you know, that, that folks in the government are looking at the right stuff and that they're not looking at the wrong stuff. And, um, you know, for anyone that would make a mistake that, you know, corrective actions, you know, really are taken, um, you know, but a point on policy, like before I lived in the beltway, and by the way, I think most people get here kind of against their will.

That's how I got here. But yeah. Um, I got, uh, the Army sent me here, um, 10 years ago for two years, and I'm still here, but I now give it back.

I actually love it. 'cause people need to understand the policy side too, as well as, yes, you absolutely need to understand what's unfolding out in the field. Uh, but I'll add to the field, like commercial markets, which is what the government doesn't know what's happening with commercial technology.

They're, they're trying to catch up. But, you know, those are, those are ga the mind the gap as they say. There's certainly a gap between headquarters and fields, between policy and action and between, um, government and, uh, commercial.

Like, and I think if we are gonna, you know, you brought up, uh, Ukraine, um, it was in the news this week that, uh, there are in, um, on the front lines in Ukraine in a square mile, there's on average 800 drones in the air at any time. Like, can you imagine like, oh my gosh. You know, so, um, that can and does, does and will happen.

Um, and any one of those, any one drone could, you know, deliver an effect, um, you know, to a person. Um, and I, uh, I don't, I try not to be doomsday and anything like that, but, um, what is stopping anyone from doing that here, you know, a criminal group, a nation state actor, a you know, um, and I'm gonna get back to policy here because there's connective tissue here. Um, policy always drags behind, you know, action.

It takes a long time, particularly in our, our wonderful system of representative governance, you know, that, um, you know, to get, to get a policy, um, changed, um, it is really important that policy does change. It has to change carefully. Um, government will never be exactly like a business would be.

Um, businesses have built this commercial technology that we're all using around the world to, you know, we human beings to build positive and negative effect. Um, we need the policy here to catch up with that. Uh, drones is just one example, but imagine, you know, in a combat zone, it's, you don't have so much worry about taking something out of the air that doesn't belong there.

Um, there is certainly, you know, a process to make sure you're getting the right thing and that it won't have, you know, collateral damage or could have minimize any sort of collateral damage that one, one could minimize. Um, but domestically, that's still a big messy policy problem. Um, and it impacts things like individual liberties, you know, air, F-C-C-F-A-A, um, you know, gosh, um, individual liberties, um, privacy, uh, all of these things, all, you know, bound up into one.

And, um, you know, at the end of the day, I feel that when we, um, blame a particular actor or institution for inaction on something, on one part, on one hand, you might be right on the other hand, like, um, nobody, nobody gets outta bed in the morning to say, you know, in the federal government or, or in industry, you know, nobody gets outta bed in the morning to say, how can I mess this up? Like they're reacting to something, right? And maybe on your inevitability curve, if you could rise up over it and see down, you know, then you, you know, you might see what needs to happen.

But there's different forces acting on these folks in different points in time. And the only way that the federal folks, um, and states and local, the only way governments can catch up is through more partnership with citizens, with, um, you know, with commercial companies. Um, and, and, and with partners who care.

'cause at the end of the day, we're all invested, right? And making democracy work and making our economy work and in, um, upholding our national security and, and including our, you know, domestic tranquility. And so, um, we've gotta work together to get all that done.

Um, I do think that, um, a lot of people are working on it, you know, many of them. And, uh, I don't think the autocrats, um, you know, in foreign governments, you know, can, can do that as well as we, with our grassroots, you know, bottoms up approaches. Um, I think they'll win the day.

And I, I just agree, right. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, uh, quote something from, uh, my very favorite belt were, uh, beltway, uh, friend contact of all time. So, sorry, sorry, all the rush of you, but gentleman Michael Hayden, right?

The amazing guy. Oh, yeah. Right?

Mm-hmm. At the turnoff group at the time, it was the day after the Navy yard shooting. So I always remember the, the, remember that Edward, Edward was, I think still in China, or, or being Yeah.

Somewhere. And, uh, the heavy with, uh, gentle Hayden, and we're talking about this at the beginning of it, you know, get very upset about the Snowden leak because people die, you know, people use Yeah. And responsible each, right.

You know, that, that kind of thing has, uh, K Connecticut, uh, impact. And I was trying to, you know, find some, uh, silver lining to it and say, well, maybe this will help us have a national conversation about how we actually are protecting civil liberties and so forth. And, and he was on, um, uh, general Haman was on the, was on the news law at, at time, uh, and, uh, and he said, no, right.

You know, the, the, they said, I would never say this on TV because the American people just wouldn't believe it. But, you know, our European allies send their intelligence people over to be trained by the NSA in how to protect civil liberties, because we're really good at it. Right.

You can't just be touching people's information without being, you know. Yep. There are controls in place.

Yep. Is it perfect? No.

If it's a, there's a lot of effort, uh, put into this. And I think it, you know, for all the, the complications in the private sector, you know, working with the government can be a little frustrating sometimes. However, um, it's better than the feast or famine of Aris.

Um, this is, Yeah, absolutely. But I wanted to, you know, jump on the whole policy thing. 'cause this is in gear thought this is, yeah.

In supply chain security, where I've been focusing in the last five years, I see an inevitability. You know, we are going to make automated systems that allow everyone, you know, uh, who needs to, to be able to say, this is my device, and it is a program of logical control or critical infrastructure, and I'm the engineer, you know, in charge. Mm-hmm.

I need to be everything about where this thing has been in its life cycle, and I need to see it right now. You not in three days, not in three months, but in the next three seconds. Yeah.

We're building systems now, and we can only do that if we get, uh, integrity of information to a different level that it's been right where I'm really turning off on the grid based on that sort of stuff. So that's coming anyways, and at the same time. And so the policies around that information are the same shape, the same kind of policies we need about, you know, surveillance video.

So, you know, drones are out there taking video. How is that handled? Well, you know, do I need to put it in some place for it's attest to so that whoever's, you know, uh, whoever has the right to see who's seeing that video can see that these are all things we can do.

So I'm seeing both the technology and the policy bending around to not just address, you know, the popular cynicism, but potentially over some period of time reverse it. People can actually see, yes, I live in some place where I really can tell that the people who are enforcing the laws are following it, for example. Yeah.

Yeah. I love that you say that, and I love that you see it as inevitable that we'll get to that place. I, I think we can, and we will.

We also have to. Um, and there's so many opportunities to do so, and you're right. When people can participate in view a process, then they're a part of it, right?

It's like the, um, you know, the election workers, they're your neighbors, you know, they're your neighbors. They're you, you know, um, they didn't get out of the bed in the morning, you know, morning to mess up elections. They care.

Um, and you know, them. I think that's another interesting aspect, like in, um, know how the internet and connectivity in the information space is unfolded. It's almost like we don't know each other anymore.

It was meant to kind of do the opposite. I think. I agree with you.

I think we'll come back together, um, because when people do meet and do, you know, engage in a like-minded task, you know, they'll turn around and find out like, wow, I actually, well, like my neighbor, I don't wanna speak to my neighbor this way. Um, you know, and as a side note, I think when, you know, when blogs started, when social media started, you know, some people just didn't have the imagination, um, you know, at the time to realize, oh, wait, um, what will happen if I make this inflammatory comment about my neighbor 10 years from now and I'm looking for a job? You know, um, you know, all of these things I think people are, you know, will evolve to, uh, understand what's appropriate in, uh, you know, in this space.

What's, what's immutable gonna be stored forever. And, um, and also I think other people will develop, we'll all kind of have to develop some forgiveness for one another. You know, like, um, gosh, the kids that, you know, came of age when these are around, like, I mean, all of us, we look back and think, what are the things, you know, that we could have had recorded for our college days or high school days with, you know, but for, you know, thank goodness, you know, that Kodak re supreme, uh, back then, because, uh, yeah.

But, um, But because I, I raised, I think do hit and raise there, well have to forgive each other a little more, right? And there's, yeah. You know, my, I have three kids in their twenties right now, so I'm vicariously experiencing this, this next generation coming up who's literally grown up and, and, and I run ethernet into their cribs.

Right. You know, so they've been online, you know, from day zero. And I've always thought that's, that, that in the, in the, you know, people, you know, oh my God, there were pictures of a, when a kid, what, you know, so, so somebody would say, you did that, and you would say, yes, I did that.

And then what? Yeah. Is it the rule, the end of the world?

I don't know. It's now not usually I, maybe you gotta apologize, maybe you say That was stupid and move on. And Yeah, right.

In the end, health, not to get all, you know, philosophical, but, but I think that actually helps us bond, right? Where it's, oh, you're a failed person too. I thought I was a failed person or whatever, flawed, or, you know, that's helps build trust rather than this idea that any security people, we do this security people, engineers, you know, military people, it's like, well, I, if I can make it even more perfect, if I can get the seal this perfect, and it's not very human.

And I, I think this is a huge benefit of American, even specifically American, I was talking western democracy yanks. Look, as somebody who lives back and forth in Canada, it's a different place here. We're a little, not a lot, we're a little more, I don't know, willing to just say, yep, screwed up and get over with that, that fear of social repercussions may and 30, 50 years from now, people looking back may say that was the big thing.

Yeah. It wasn't even the technology, the fact that everybody was walking around just terrified to, to blink. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. The, the, the fear of a potential impact is worse than the potential impact.

And, you know, you could have just met it in the moment. Like, your kids are like, yeah, I was an idiot, then I learned X, Y, or Z, whatever I learned, you know, um, at, yeah, if you can show you're a learning bear from almost any, any mishap, almost any mishap, like, then you're, you're welcome back in the circle, you know, in my book, Right? Let's, let's try it, you know, wrap this in, in, in the end of the future because that, you know, I'll basically, I will poison the well by giving my own opinion and see where you read.

But I see things over periods of decades, you know, over the, you know, through the rest of the century, into the next century afterwards. I think, you know, things like automated systems are going to be everywhere in orbit, everywhere, and, you know, with all the consequences of those, and therefore we will have systems of transparency so that all the stakeholders will be able to see where everything is all the time, so we can function and keep the lights on and so forth. Um, that, that will, that'll again, make this era and probably, perhaps, perhaps all of history just seems so dark and frightening because you just can't see, you know, the, the could, you know, we're living like conspiracy theory world, you know, I hate to bring it up in every conversation, but so many people are like, and they're, they're rational folks, but it's like, how do you know they're not doing?

You know? And there's no real answer to that. I think the future is full of answers to that.

How do you know here? I I can see it right there. Yeah.

I think if you, if you moved back in the time curve, you would look at all sorts of things that now look insane that people believed, you know? And why don't people believe those things anymore? Because, um, human learning expanded and, you know, our, our frontier grew out and, you know, we discovered things, you know, that, that are true.

And we discovered more mysteries, which means there's always gonna be that, you know, what if, you know, and a few laggards, like, hey, maybe the earth is flat. Um, hope I didn't make anyone mad by saying that. I probably did, but, um, yeah, I think it's part of the, the human actually, what's that?

Shout out to Kelly and Q Argo. I have to send him this, send him this link. He's a friend I made, you know, sailing around and who honestly believes the world is flat, bright guy, nice guy, flat, Maybe in an alternate universe.

Like it's exactly, I mean, who, you know, who knows? Yeah. But, uh, well ending on flat earth, why not?

You're gonna take this somewhere. May as well end there. So, well, I do think, uh, I'll add, I'll add one thing.

Um, you know, imagining, you know, the worst and the best. Um, that's a, that's a human, you know, a human endeavor. And I, I wonder if, I mean, it's good that we have, um, you know, imagination for both the good and the bad.

The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. Um, and if you can't dream of the best, you know, then how can you build towards it? So I think it's inevitable things will get better.

Um, not that things, you know, won't be horrible at points, you know, um, but we, uh, we can work together to, to solve all those things. I think you're exactly right. Well, thank you for your time.

Yeah. That's betting, petting, you know, you know, it's, we have a word for this now, humble brag, I hesitate to say, but you know, again, in the green room we're discussing, it's like, how do we get here? Right?

And you have this amazing background, and I seem to have this sort of crazy life, so maybe we actually deserve, do enough, but, uh, but it sure is fun anytime like folks like you and building crazy boats and getting to leave the lives you lead. So thank you. I love, uh, you know, feeling some of your life, uh, vicariously.

Um, and I, I just have big hats off to you, like every time I see you in person, like you're just one of those, you know, few people that leaves everyone feeling better and more imaginative and, and just more, um, and better about the world. So honestly, Chris, that's, that's you. I could just say thank you, right.

And thank you out in the world for spending time with us. We'll see you again soon. Cheers.