SKYNET ARISE!
They said what you hear or see in movies are just fictional, nothing to take seriously, or should you? Some people are an avid fan of the Terminator franchise, some of you should not forget the reason why the franchise is existing, thanks to Skynet. If you ever think with the technology we have, it is still impossible for Skynet to even exist, then you're outdated because Skynet is here. According to Edward Snowden, the well known NSA Contractor who leaked sensitive and top-secret projects of NSA, a creature lurks near Bluffdale, Utah that has a codename MONSTERMIND is waiting to be unleashed. No, this is not a game and you should be worried as well. This project is an automated cyber weapon by the National Security Agency's Mission Data Repository. While the project does not involve creating apocalyptical robots but it has the power to hunt and block cyber attacks without human intervention. Also, several programs like this are existing for decades but MonsterMind software has a unique capability. MonsterMind can detect, kill malware at the point of entry and automatically fire back with no human involved in the attack. If you think that's good for cybercriminals to stop, well bad news as it can cause more problems. According to Snowden, the attacks done are often routed in third countries like VPN. As to its function, it scans a huge amount of electronic communication, passing through its facility and looks for attacks and the scary here is that is how it automatically decides where to strike back, no warning at all. This automatic strike back mechanism resembles this device that the stakes are at least an order of magnitude less severe than an all-out nuclear war. If you're not satisfied with MonsterMind, there's an actual codename SKYNET Program by NSA as well. SKYNET as for NSA is a surveillance program and it uses phone location and calls metadata from phone call records. It detects suspicious patterns in the physical movements of suspects and their communication habits intended for terrorism. While this program is used to gather information for possible terrorist suspects, there are some controversies over it such as red-flagging innocent people as suspects, thus reports of killing thousands of people that are linked to a drone system, well that's more like E.D.I.T.H in my view, right? Skynet is here, what should we do?
Sources: [1] Grant Gross (2014) Snowden reveals automated NSA cyberwarfare program (ComputerWorld from IDG)
[2] SKYNET: Applying Advanced Cloud-based Behavior Analytics". The Intercept (2015)
Photo: Terminator Wiki
