Ubiwar: Excellent new blog

ubiwar.com

I highly recommend this new blog by King’s student Tim Stevens which I have linked to above. It’s been going for just a short time but already Tim has posted much rich food for thought for those interested particularly in the nexus between war and technology, specifically IT. From the  ‘about’ page:

The use of the internet as a means to advertise, organise, proselytise and radicalise is well-documented in the context of the current global jihadist insurgency, as it is with less international actors in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places besides. The internet currently represents our best example of a global virtual environment, extending beyond ‘traditional’ global media and social systems in both scope and content. It is also an evolving phenomenon. In particular, we can not tell how its use will develop, nor whether other technologies will arise and perhaps die.

For the foreseeable future we can be sure that information technology will become increasingly ubiquitous, that the digital divide will slowly close, and that people will increasingly use what we currently understand as virtual means to communicate and act. How technology will affect or facilitate those interested in committing violent acts (whether physical or psychological) is unknown.

Ubiwar posits that as technology becomes ubiquitous, the means available to people – which may eventually include all of us – will increase and diversify, even if the means may not be particularly technologically sophisticated, at least at the user level. What I am interested in is how technology affects people such that they have the potential to become vectors for real and perceived violence and also agents in its propagation and commission. Of particular relevance to this blog is how modes of warfare move to exploit technological niches, real and virtual, especially if these have yet to fully develop or be conceived of.

I shall add this to the KOW blogroll.