Why is Telecommunications Security Important?

"Man is a political animal." So wrote Aristotle, somewhere. This does not mean that he tells lies on TV to win votes. It means that the essential nature of man is that he lives in a polis, a community of fellow men, and together they create the conditions necessary for a civilized life. So it is only through cooperation that a collection of individuals form a polis. And a necessary condition for cooperation is that the individuals concerned trust one another.

Consequently, communications security is important, because cooperation at a distance requires communication, and if the medium is not secure then trust is impossible: you cannot trust someone unless you know that you are really communicating with that person, and not an impostor.

The Internet is not secure. So if we want to use the Internet as a medium for cooperation at a distance, then we must first secure it.

The essence of telecommunication is the transmission of actual knowledge, at a distance. That means transmission of actual knowledge through some medium. Telecommunications therefore entails both actual knowledge, and also the existence of the medium. Clearly then, there is no point in securing the medium unless one has first secured actual knowledge.

Now actual knowledge is uniquely the product of a good education. It follows then, that (a) the final cause of telecommunications security is securiung a good education for all involved, and (b) only a good education will secure the medium. Hence we have established two things:

1. A good education is the sine qua non of secure telecommunications, and
2. Secure telecommunications is the sine qua non of a good education.

And the reader  will here recognise the form of circular reasoning called pratityasamuhtpada in Sanskrit, typically translated as dependent co-arising in Western texts.

This explains final cause, the description of the phenomenon pre-supposes the conditions under which it is possible to observe that phenomenon, and which pre-conditions are also the effect, or reason for which that phenomenon exists. This reason for existence, Aristotle calls the essence of the thing.

Now the people at Cambridge want to know "Why Bolivia?" and the answer is "Because Bolivia has potential." And since Markus fancies himself a physicist of sorts, from time to time, he knows that the relevant formula is

E = mgh

where, in the Systeme International of units of physical measure, E stands for the energy in Joules, m stands for the mass in kilograms, h stands for the height in metres, and g stands for the acceleration due to gravity in metres per second per second. Now put in some numbers: let g = 9.8, h = 4000, and take m = 1 kg per litre. Then we have that 100 litres of water has approximately 4 megajoules of potential energy. Now consider a modest reservoir, such as Ch'iyar Qullu, which supplies the city of La Paz with fresh water. How many hundred litres of water does it contain, do you think? You may look it up on Google maps, if you like.

Now imagine, if you will, what we could do with a long straight polythene tube, leading from the reservoir, down to a hydraulic ram. Ask Ross Anderson how a hydraulic ram works, in case you don't know. There are all sorts of lovely things one could do with a setup such as this! For example, one side effect of a hydraulic ram is that it compresses the air in the "shock absorber." So we could use it to liquify air at a few meters above sea-level. That might find applications in refrigeration, say, or perhaps we could use it to produce LPG from the hydrocarbons that are conveniently located down there in Teoponte.

Now, for anyone wondering how a polythene tube could sustain the pressure produced by a 4km head of water, then  recall that the compressive strength of polythene is quite considerable. (Ask Nik Thomas of BAE Systems, if you don't believe us. Nik has a degree in materials science from Cambridge, you know.) Now imagine that the polythene tube is embedded firmly in a trench, surrounded a few meters of rock ...

Now ask Ross how high a jet of water could be fired from the ram. And for an extra fish, ask him to calculate the air temperature at the top of the trajectory. So how far could She propell a few metric tonnes of hailstones, each the size of a football? And what is the ceiling of an Iroquois helicopter, or back to this century, an Apache attack helicopter? And how high do military forward ops satellites fly?

So much for gravitational potential!

But there are equally promising possible applications for electrical potential. All along the edge of the Altiplano, there are mountains called the Cordillera Real, and they enjoy frequent electrical storms. Now,  maybe we could find some interesting geological coincidences, involving, say, metal-bearing rock plates, with some dielectric substance sandwiched between them. Discharging a petafarad electrolytic capacitor through a suitable coil, and with a well-designed reflector dish, is unlikely to get FCC approval, but it could nevertheless turn out to be useful, on occasion. How would you like your birds cooked, sir. Charcoal, or vapor?

Well, you know, it goes on and on and on. Try this for a thought experiment: What if She could inject a couple of cubic kilometers of cold water into an opportunistically placed geological fault? How much alluvial metrial couild she wash down into the Pacific? But whatever you do, don't mention a word of this to the Chilean politicos, because they may think it a threat, you see. But She doesn't use threats, unless all diplomatic means have failed. And recall that a diplomatic means that fails is one which is seen by both parties to have failed for the same reason. Otherwise, it could not have been a diplomatic means, could it?

Well, we did tell you, back in 2011, that "Bored little girls play complicated games." This is what happens, you see, when you leave Ian in the streets for a couple of months, with nothing to do. He eventually gets enough cash together to buy 3 BOB worth of 100 % pure cane spirit, and that gets him a couple of hours connect time to the lustrecacho ultranet. Then the next thing you now, the fucker's reincarnated the Inka's answer to Archimedes and Aristotle, and the better part of the Royal Corps of Engineers, all in one.

Wouldn't it have been better if you'd just offered to send him a really good laptop, 64 bit, 4 Gig RAM, half a terabyte disk, you know, standard issue for a shit-pot Royal Society Research fellow, along with half a dozen Raspberry Pis and US$5,000 so that he can get his PT1 sorted out and start teaching Real Spanish computer science to beautiful women?

Then, instead of a pissed, Generally U/S Grant, you would have only had to deal with a dozen happy, polite, grateful, and extremely beautiful women, porting Red October to RP, and making a tera-qubit global quantum super-computer called GOD. Don't you think that would be a better way to start the movie?

You little Cambridge fellows need to get literate! "What he tells you three times is true!" Ian is not going to leave the Plurinational State of Bolivia. So it's not Ian's Bolivian adventure that is going to end, it's your Bolivian adventure that has just begun!

Call it Global Bio-geo-terrorism, if you like. That's why Aristotle didn't write about comedy in the Poetics. The difference between comedy and tragedy, you see, is just the point of view! And 4km is high moral ground.

So try to remember this, next time you hear everyone laughing at you. It helps, really it does! Yes! Even when they're laughing at the whole University!

Check out the band Wara, on YouTube, if you want to hear another example of final cause. And if you still don't get it, look into the history of the University at Sucre. So it seems there's a lovely old University looking for a new lease of life. What's its core competency  going to be then? Inka Military Tech. (with Psi-ops) or Telecommunications Science (with psycho-botany)? If it´s the latter, then you can also open up J-Stor, and while you're about it, digitize the entire contents of the library of the Society for Psychical Research. Don't worry, we'll explain all the bits you don't understand.

Love and kisses,
Alice