Elon University
The prediction, in brief:

There may well be an increase in guerrilla warfare because new technologies may increase our vulnerability to it … A database – or a control system – usually has multiple pathways, unpredictable routes to it, and seems intrinsically impossible to protect. That’s why most efforts at computer security have been defeated.

Predictor: Marshall, Andrew

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Peter Schwartz, co-founder and president of Global Business Network and author of “The Art of the Long View,” interviews Andrew Marshall, a national security researcher/consultant whose work included stints at the Rand think tank in 1949 and 22 years at the Pentagon, under six presidents. Schwartz quotes Marshall saying: ”There may well be an increase in guerrilla warfare because new technologies may increase our vulnerability to it. We are living in the equivalent of the early 1920s, when tanks, airplanes, and later radar and radio were new, and people weren’t sure what they were or how to use them. We have only preliminary ideas about how today’s technology is going to change warfare. But it will. In the old world, if I wanted to attack something physical, there was one way to get there. You could put guards and guns around it, you could protect it. But a database – or a control system – usually has multiple pathways, unpredictable routes to it, and seems intrinsically impossible to protect. That’s why most efforts at computer security have been defeated.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics

Subtopic: Peacekeeping/Warfare

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: Warrior in the Age of Intelligent Machines: The Pentagon’s Resident Visionary, Andrew Marshall, Talks to Peter Schwartz About Why Everything You Know About War is Wrong

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.04/pentagon_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney