1. TLC220 – 2014 – S1 – Research Essay – 35% – Rodney Dines – 31510992 – Mon. 10:30am
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Research Essay - 35% 2000-2500 Words
Assessment Value: 35%
Due Date: Friday June 6th
Extension Due Date: Saturday, 21 June 2014, 10:10 AM
Length: 2000 – 2500 words
You need to write a high-quality research essay related to the digital revolution. This essay is to be
presented in the form of a self-generated academic argument, regarding an aspect of the digital
revolution that is of interest to you.
In this essay you are expected to demonstrate a critical understanding of the digital revolution, as
well as the practical skills involved in writing a research essay, such as essay structure, critical
analysis, academic register, accurate referencing, relevant research and clarity and strength of
argument.
Your essay must:
o Have a clear essay structure: introduction, body and conclusion
o Present a strong thesis relevant to the digital revolution topic
o Present a coherent and logical argument in support of the thesis
o Incorporate at least 8 external references, of appropriate academic quality
o Contain correct and consistent referencing, both in-text and in a reference list at the end
o Demonstrate evidence of critical analysis and engagement with the research and thesis
o Be drafted for grammatical clarity
o Be written in an appropriate academic register
Original Research Question:
Are technological dependencies being adopted and incorporated into
modern business practices – particularlyin relation to rapidlyexpanding use
of the internet and its new cloud1 based information services – such that, we
may not be fully aware of all possible vulnerabilities and subsequent economic
and social impact that may result from systemic failure due to concerted cyber-
attacks, cyber-terrorism or cyber-warfare2?
1 The term “cloud based services” is used here in reference to any information service that is available on the
internet but not hosted within the physical control of the information service’s consumer. This would include all the
publicly available cloud services as well as any private cloud services (called private because they are “secured” from
general access) that are not located within the immediate physicalcontrol of the company or individual using them.
2 My definition of cyber-terrorism and cyber-warfare includes cyber initiated terrorism and war but also
physically initiated terrorism and war that may impinge upon the cyber-world (specifically internet infrastructure).

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Research Essay: There exist potential and often unconsidered
vulnerabilities in the fabric of the changing ways in which
Australian businesses conduct their activities utilising new
Internet based cloud services.
The rapid changes the digital revolution has bought about have had many positive benefits such as
the Internet, the World Wide Web and ubiquitous Internet email communications; but the negative side-
effects of many of these rapid technological changes are still in the process of being properly discovered
and understood. The internet has been a central key development of the digital revolution that has either
directly or indirectly touched many people’s lives, particularly in western developed nations such as
Australia. A recent development of the expanding pervasiveness of the internet, and the broadband
communications that has enabled this increased utility of the internet, is the development of what are
often referred to as “cloud” services. The concept of cloud based services is known to many consumers
simply as “apps” which is a simplification of applications. Cloud based application services include any
information service that is consumed over the Internet; but for which the consumer3
typically has little
regard for the how, whom or from where they are physically provided. Indeed most of what the consumer
is concerned with is the applications utility and their user experience through a laptop or desktop PC and
increasingly through a mobile device such as a tablet or smartphone. In this essay I argue that there exist
potential and often unconsidered vulnerabilities in the fabric of the changing ways in which Australian
businesses conduct their activities utilising these new internet based cloud services. Firstly there is a
rapidly increasing dependency on these cloud based services, particularly by English speaking Western
businesses like those found in Australia; these Western businesses and governments alike have been
willing consumers of these new cloud services while showing scant regard for some of their associated
risks. Secondly the fabric of Australia’s internet is highly dependent on only a few common
infrastructure components that make it an easy target and vulnerable to an economically efficient and
significantly debilitating attack. Thirdly these vulnerabilities could be exploited by criminals, terrorists or
indeed waring states in order to impart significant economic instability and potentially severe economic
3 The consumer is either a person or an organisation such as a business ora government department. But in the
context of this essay a consumer is assumed to be any type of business ororganisation,including single person
businesses.What I am not primarily concerned with in this essay are private individuals as consumers.

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damage within a targeted nation such as Australia. Fourthly Australian authorities and the Australian
government have demonstrated limited concern for fully comprehending the risks; how important these
cloud based services are becoming to the functioning of many Australian businesses; and have done little
to both mitigate the issue by neither widely informing businesses of this potential problem, nor
undertaking significant preparatory steps toward mitigating the security risks of terrorism, organised
criminal activity, or state sponsored warfare on these key infrastructure components. Finally there are
some people who believe the Australian government has indeed addressed these issues sufficiently;
perhaps these opinions are fair or possibly they are based in ignorance or worse in their deliberate
avoidance due to policy priorities.
The last decade has seen a rapid growth in digital applications delivered from app stores such as
Apple’s iTunes, Google’s Play Store (for mobile devices), Google’s Chrome Web Store (for PCs), and
Microsoft’s Windows Store. These and many other web browser based web applications (web apps)
often utilise Internet based cloud services and are known to many PC users as well as the recent wave of
smartphone and tablet users; however there are also many additional Internet based applications targeted
purely at the economic and productive activity conducted within and on behalf of businesses. These so
called “cloud based” application services have come to support many core aspects of business activity
including, accounting, banking, customer relationship management (CRM), marketing campaign
management, communications management (email), inventory management services, file management,
virtual store (ecommerce) management and many other business aspects. There are many businesses,
particularly many small and medium businesses that can exist and thrive entirely in the virtual world of
“the cloud”. Saskia Sassen an Internet sociologist argues that digital networks have become embedded in
the real physical infrastructure of business commerce (2002, 366). One of the key advantages of cloud
based services is what Sassen calls “hypermobility” which enables the de-materialised aspects of business
to allow for “instantaneous circulation through digital networks with global span” (2002, 369). This
hypermobility allows for the virtualisation of these business services and also contributes to their ease of
use, cost effectiveness, reduced capital investment, and there appears to be an unwitting lack of
forethought for their real risk of use. The result is that the mobility, availability and low barriers to use of
these apps and thus their ability to rapidly catalyse the building of businesses based upon these services
are also the key selling points that have driven their rapid rise and subsequent adoption (Ebbeck 2014,

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para 3-5). In the past decade the uptake of these cloud based application services has been dramatic and
particularly so in the wake of the global financial crisis (GFC) as they have allowed for a rapid reduction
in many of the costs of doing business (OECD 2012a, 32,34) . In many cases cloud based services have
been a low cost enabler for many new businesses in the wake of redundancies caused by the GFC; but
they have also been a way for hard pressed existing businesses and governments to cut operating costs
and overheads in an environment of austerity and fierce competition (Al-Rashedi and Abdulelah Awadh
2014, 201). In this post GFC high risk business environment many otherwise valid concerns for the lower
but still very real risks of adopting new technologies are sometimes dismissed or conveniently overlooked
(OECD 2012b, 131-154). Significantly the developing business norm of competing with higher risk and
lower cost by utilising cloud services may become embedded into business culture long after the current
era of austerity and competition has dissipated. This leads to concerns of the vulnerability of Australia’s
international communications network.
The structure of the physical Internet and the submarine fibre-optic cables that are used to make it
work are hidden from view, quite literally underwater. This leads to a hidden and often ignored
vulnerability as they become significant common points of failure in a few highly utilised resources
(Marks 2010, 22, DoPS 2014, 5, APEC 2012, 34, Shakarian, Ruef, and Shakarian 2013, 6-8, VanHemert
2010, Para 2). Indeed Australia’s current international Internet infrastructure currently relies on seven4
of
these submarine cables (DoPS 2014, 6). However they connect to Australia through just four choke
points (DoPS 2014, 6) two of which, in Sydney are critical to the proper functioning of the Australian
economy they pass the vast majority of Internet traffic (APEC 2012, 17); the specific routes of which are
easily identified by publicly available maps (DoC 2007, 1). Choke points and many other points of
potential failure exist in this chain and are vulnerable to dependencies such as power supplies and the
presence of the far end transmission termination and onward-routing that could readily be severely
disrupted without our immediate knowledge or control.
The ability for trans-national terrorist organisations, suitably funded criminals or nation state actors
bent on war, to disable our submarine cable network extends beyond Australia’s own borders into the
international waters and onto the shores of other nations where the submarine cables land (Laprise 2006,
27). If an attacker should take out all or most of these key targets and they are disrupted in unison then
the economic impact on Australia is likely to be very significant according to a recent APEC report (APEC
4 Several more are planned and indeed this increased diversity will reduce the risks of failure somewhat.

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2012, 8-9). It is relevant to understand that Australia uses submarines cables for all (100%) of its
international internet and telecommunications (APEC 2012, 34). Satellite communications are of little
use as a replacement or backup to submarine cables due to their high costs, low bandwidth and relative
latency due to high geo-stationary orbits. The government of Australia with the issue of national security
as a key tenant must play an important role in mitigating the potential risks to our cyber-space by these
very possible, if not highly probable threats to Australia’s submarine cable network, mostly due to the
scale of impact this type attack could exact on the Australian economy.
Cyber security has become a significant issue for the Australian government in recent years with
many different and diverse facets to manage. Under Julia Gillard’s lead the Australian government was
set to undertake the development of both a Cyber-Security and a National Cloud Computing Strategy
whitepaper (DBCDE and NBN 2013), however the complexities of the Cyber-Security whitepaper and
the many public submissions made meant that it never came to fruition and was later substituted for a
more general discussion on the digital economy (Maley 2013). These documents took a few years to
produce in one case,and not produce at all in the other case, and rapidly becoming outdated due to
technology changes, and changes in the ways business and consumers are using technology. This
example serves to illustrate one of the many difficulties with timely policy and decision making in
government. Another example was found in researching this essay there where many cases of
government documents on cloud computing and cloud services that focus primarily on encouraging
business and government agencies to adopt these technologies along with the appropriate best practices,
primarily in order to increase Australia’s participation in these new technologies and I assume to increase
both public and private productivity as a result (DBCDE and NBN 2013, DoC 2007, 2014, DoD 2011,
DoFD and AGIMO 2011). This appears to be a worrying trend since none of them specifically mention
the possibility of risk or impact of any period of complete international submarine network outage.
The recent ASPI report on cyber maturity in the Asia Pacific Region (2014) shows that Australia is
doing reasonably well when compared to many other regional nations and with the USA and the UK as
our peers (Australian Strategic Policy Institute 2014, 15, 57, 59). The ASPI report however does not
reveal the full details of actual vectors of attack considered, nor all the modes of failure considered.
Perhaps it is possible that there are significant issues that have not been foreseen nor addressed by the
Australian government and its agencies. The already mentioned ASPI report (Australian Strategic Policy
Institute 2014) and a previous ASPI led conference meeting on the future of cyber-security (Australian

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Strategic Policy Institute 2013) serve to illustrate that there are many people in government that consider
that many aspects of national cyber-security have been addressed, but they also point to a lack of
ownership and coordination of the issues across government agencies. It is evident from the comments of
many Australian government agencies responsible for different aspects of national security at the ASPI
conference proceedings that until recently little oversight of cyber infrastructure issues was being
undertaken in Canberra. Some government representatives believe they are aware of the issues and that
activity is progressing (Australian Strategic Policy Institute 2013). However the ASPI event also revealed
independent business concerns that there still does not exist a centralised seat of responsibility within
government for these worrying national security matters (Australian Strategic Policy Institute 2013). The
good news is that there does appear to be some concern within government and a growing awareness both
within the international media and the telecommunications infrastructure community (Marks 2010,
VanHemert 2010).
In conclusion it is evident that the past decade has seen a rapid uptake of cloud based application
services particularly driven by an era of austerity in the wake of the GFC and the benefits of reduced
operating costs to both starting and doing business. While at the strategic heart of any business is the
management of risk, the key problem here is that the risk is hidden from view and very difficult to
quantify and would appear to often be completely overlooked especially in the current economic
environment. Even when the risk is realised it is even harder for businesses to envisage and quantify the
real impact that the loss of these virtual services for an extended period will have on their real world
business, let alone justify additional costs in mitigating them. As an ICT consultant I know that those
people in businesses that have been stung by the experience of the loss of their IT systems through poor
backup management are often the ones who are the best at making sure their businesses don’t take
unnecessary risks again. Unfortunately we may have to see many hundreds of businesses fail due to the
sudden loss of their cloud based application services – possibly as the result of a specific and potentially
devastating and extended economic event – before Australian businesses and their governments wake up
and properly investigate the very real risks associated with overly depending on them.
The problem for the future is for the Australian Government and its various agencies to both
identify and adequately address the underlying national cyber-security risks preferably led from a single
responsible stakeholder. One way this might be achieved is an attempt to drive and change business

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awareness of the risks they take in overly relying on international based cloud services with all its
interwoven dependencies. A possible approach to this might be to implement a national one-day-a-year
strategy where we as a complete nation deliberately turn off international internet access (outgoing only)
in an attempt to make all Australia’s businesses and peoples fully aware of how much we rely on it. This
would also give a distinctive media platform for which to have significant press coverage of the issue thus
dramatically increasing awareness. The opportunity would also allow businesses to test and remove
unwanted dependencies from their ICT infrastructures.
In addition the government could perhaps partly sponsor additional submarine cable infrastructure
so that we can diversify the submarine cable network links via more diverse points of interconnect and to
other and perhaps farther reaching and more ideologically aligned nations and thus bolster our network
infrastructure by simultaneously reducing the risks of an entire international internet black-out and
increasing competition and future expandability in our international internet and telecommunications
transits.
References
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