Explorations in Cyber International Relations (ECIR)

Patrick Henry Winston

Explorations in Cyber International Relations OSD Minerva Research Project at Harvard & MIT

Taking Machine Intelligence to the Next Level

Conference on Cyber International Relations: Emergent Realities of

Conflict and Cooperation | October 14, 2010

Why are we different?

The Story Hypothesis

• Micro culture• Experience• Family

• Macro culture• Religion• School• History• Literature

• Fairy and folk tales

• Parables

• Narratives

• Precedents

• Propaganda

• Cases• Science and engineering

• Law

• Business

• Medicine

Which two are the same?

Genesis story understanding system

Parser Semanticanalysis

Commonsenseanalysis

Reflective analysis

Domain independent

English

Syntacticrelations

Semanticevents

Elaborationgraph

Thoughtsabout

thoughts

Questionexpert

Situationonsetexpert

Precedentretrievalexpert

Analogyexpert

The Russia-Estonia CyberwarEstonia and Russia are countries.

Estonia believed computer networks are valuable. Estonia built many valuable computer networks.

Estonia insulted Russia because Estonia moved a war memorial.

Someone damaged the valuable computer networks of Estonia after Estonia harmed Russia.

The damage of the computer networks included the defacement of the web sites. The defacement of the sites showed that someone did not respect Estonia.

Estonia created a center to study computer security. Estonia believed other states would support the center.

The end.

All knowledge in English

• Commonsense

If xx insults yy, then xx harms yy.

If xx damages yy's artifact, then xx harms yy.

• Reflective

"Teaching a lesson" occurs when:xx's harming yy leads to yy's harming xx. xx's harming yy leads to xx's harming me.

Video omitted.

Exciting future!

• X anticipates Y’s reaction, avoids blunder

• X intervenes to prevent Y from acting

• X understands Y’s point of view

• X negotiates with Y

• X explains situation to Y in Y’s terms

• X teaches Y how to interpret situation

• X shapes Y’s reaction

Video omitted.

The Russia-Estonia CyberwarWith Katz’s START parser:Estonia and Russia are countries.

Estonia believed computer networks are valuable. Estonia built many valuable computer networks.

Estonia insulted Russia because Estonia moved a war memorial.

Someone damaged the valuable computer networks of Estonia after Estonia harmed Russia.

The damage of the computer networks included the defacement of the web sites. The defacement of the sites showed that someone did not respect Estonia.

Estonia created a center to study computer security. Estonia believed other states would support the center.

With Finlayson’s Story Workbench:

In 2007, Estonia chose to relocate The Bronze Soldier of Talinn, a controversial statue, from the city center to a nearby cemetery. While a seemingly innocuous event, it ended up causing massive political backlash. At the heart of the matter was the controversy around the statue itself: to Russia and ethnic Russian immigrants, it symbolizes the victory of the Sovient Union over Germany in World War II, whereas to many Estonians, it symbolizes Soviet occupation and repression following the war. As such, when the plan to move the statue was announced, many russians were furious at Estonia, leading to the largest instance of state-sponsored cyber-warfare since Titan Rain. …

Revenge emerges from experience

In 1998, Afghan terrorists bombed the U.S.'s embassy in Cairo, killing over 200 people and 12 Americans. Two weeks later, The U.S. retaliated for the bombing with cruise missile attacks on the terrorist's camps in Afghanistan, which were largely unsuccessful. The terrorists claimed that the bombing was a response to America torturing Egyptian terrorists several months earlier.

In early 2010, Google's servers were attacked by Chinese hackers. As such, Google decided to withdraw from China, removing its censored search site and publically criticizing the Chinese policy of censorship. In response, a week later China banned all of Google's search sites.

Contributions• Suggested the Story Hypothesis

• Argued for humanlike thinking at cyber speed

• Demonstrated the Genesis system• With two persona

• With question answered

• With situation onset detected

• Illustrated scaling ability of Story Workbench