Safe House Global

OUR SPEAKERS

MAY 04 Schedule

While there is not yet a broad consensus on what cognitive warfare is and who within the United States Government is responsible for conducting it, there is broad consensus that the United States and China are both engaging in cognitive warfare globally as a part of their respective strategies for competition. Both countries have invested heavily in advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and big data analytics to gain an advantage over the other in terms of global sentiment and, sometimes, even targeting individual political or military leaders, regions, or countries. While today’s tactics of cognitive warfare evolve as quickly as our technologies, its grand strategy goal is as ancient as warfare, “To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” Both the United States and China are engaging in cognitive warfare with the goal of winning in great power competition.

This presentation will address the advent of Artificial Intelligence in both Offense and Defense as it impacts Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR) with a very strong focus on Critical Functions assessment.

Autonomous systems have become a common occurrence in conflicts ranging from peaceful protests to war between nation-states yet, somehow, little has been done to look at the threat now and in the future. Furthermore, hardly any innovation has been made to counter autonomous systems now or in the future. In this talk, you will hear about the current state of autonomous systems. You will also hear about the worrisome tactics and strategies used by combatants that can overwhelm existing defensive systems. Last but not least, we’ll discuss mitigation technologies including future systems designed to counter sophisticated adversarial autonomy.

Robi will also conduct a 90-minute workshop on drone and counter-drone warfare including loitering munitions on May 5.

Andy Milburn spent nine months in Ukraine leading an all-volunteer effort to provide critical combat skills training to Ukraine’s all-civilian Territorial Defense Forces as well providing life-saving support to civilians trapped along the front lines of Soledar and Bahkmut, often while under fire by Russian and Wagner Group forces. His talk will address geopolitical and military lessons learned.

Col. Milburn will also conduct a 90 minute workshop on those topics, including why a protracted war will only play in Russia’s favor. At the lessons learned level — if we are paying attention, we will see that current US concepts about military readiness are obsolete.

Beliefs about edge science topics like machine consciousness, premonitions, mind control, psychedelics, high strangeness, synchronicity, the impacts of love and prayer, UFO effects on health, and the survival of consciousness after death affect many US citizens’ everyday behavior. These topics share both their ubiquity as human experiences and their taboo status as scholarly topics. Regardless of their truth value, edge science inspires the imagination and often leads to strategically valuable discoveries. For example, informed investigations of psychokinesis, or the ability to influence matter directly with the mind, could spark innovations that mitigate the encryption-breaking potential of quantum computing. Despite a recent awareness of the lack of innovation arising from expansion on scientific knowns, the inaccuracy of ideas about linear time and causality, and the rise of a postmaterialist approach to science, there is no well-respected organization examining, innovating, and informing policy in this space. In this talk, edge scientist and STEM policy visionary Dr. Julia Mossbridge will describe how making edge science research and innovation a national priority will allow us to mitigate threats and develop opportunities in the military and intelligence space.

Merriam Webster defines the American Dream as “a happy way of living that is thought of by many Americans as something that can be achieved by anyone in the U.S. especially by working hard and becoming successful.” However America was founded in a rebellion of entrepreneurs against the monolithic system of monarchy, not by rolling up our sleeves to help King George gain a little more wealth and power. From economic resiliency to community health, entrepreneurship is a vital part of America’s promise, a central means of securing our unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Even so, Americans’ entrepreneurial spirit has been in decline for decades. This talk will share key data points that suggest improving entrepreneur support infrastructure is an essential foundation for maintaining a democratic society, and how we can succeed in doing so.

The U.S. Government and allied nations are putting enormous resources into disrupting and dismantling criminal gangs who target their victims with ransomware. Ransomware has been acknowledged as not ‘only’ a cybercrime, but also as a national security threat. However, we are collectively still failing to truly stem the tide of ransomware operations or significantly reduce the threat to our national security if these gangs were to make the easy shift to solely targeting critical infrastructure. The collective counter-ransomware strategy needs to be flipped on its head if it’s going to succeed in addressing the crux of the problem. The vast majority of these groups are operating from sanctuary countries with total impunity, and unless our strategy changes to truly reflect this fact, we’ll only continue to nibble at the edge of the ransomware problem.

There are over 50 billion xIoT devices in operation worldwide. Most of these devices run well-known operating systems like Linux, Android, BSD, and various real-time operating systems like VxWorks. Additionally, many xIoT devices have open ports, protocols, storage, memory, and processing capabilities similar to your laptop. But there is a major difference. Even though most enterprises and government agencies have tens to hundreds of thousands of these devices in production, they go largely unmanaged and unmonitored. These xIoT devices typically operate with weak credentials, old, vulnerable firmware, extraneous services, and problematic certificates. This massive, vulnerable xIoT attack surface is being successfully exploited by bad actors engaging in cyber espionage, data exfiltration, sabotage, and ransomware.

As a result, nation-states like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran have shifted their focus to xIoT attacks. Why? Because they work. Military-grade xIoT hacking tools are in use, cybercrime for hire predicated on compromised xIoT devices has been monetized, and public and private organizations worldwide are already “pwned” without even knowing it. Nation-state actors are counting on you being passive by not mitigating xIoT security risks. They want you to fail so they can continue to evade detection and maintain persistence on your xIoT devices.

In this session, Phosphorus Founder and CEO Chris Rouland will share stories from the trenches involving cybercriminals, nation-state actors, and defenders. He’ll detail findings from over six years of xIoT threat research spanning millions of production devices in enterprises and government agencies around the world. He’ll address specific threats from US adversaries like persistent xIoT malware (QuietExit), weaponized xIoT botnets (Fronton), a training platform for critical infrastructure attacks (Crystal-2V), an ICS exploitation framework (Pipedream), pre-installed malware in devices, drones, VoIP supply chain attacks and more. And finally, he’ll identify various steps organizations can take to mitigate risk while embracing a Things-connected world.

“nomad” leads an offensive cyber team at Ukraine’s GUR. In this workshop, nomad will share how they have been identifying and disrupting Iranian and Chinese companies who have been providing support to Russian military forces.

Robi will expand on the topics that he touched on during his 20-minute talk on May 4th, plus add virtual exercises with simulated drone and counter-drone attacks and defenses.

During his approximately nine months in Ukraine, Andy Milburn had an up close and personal view of the war both from the perspective of the Territorial Defense Units and GUR SOF teams that he worked with as well as civilians he and his team provided humanitarian aid to in and around the Bahkmut “meat grinder”.

In this workshop, Andy will take a deep dive into the military and geopolitical lessons learned and walk the attendees through different scenarios for how the U.S. could best leverage that knowledge to improve military readiness.

When thinking strategically and preparing for possible future events, we sometimes imagine the future as our enemy. It can seem cagey, secretive, often unpredictable, and potentially adversarial. What if the future became an ally, willingly sharing crucial information with our intuitive capacities? In this workshop, cognitive neuroscientist and informational time travel researcher Dr. Mossbridge will briefly provide the scientific background that supports the idea that an alliance with the future is possible — and in fact, very helpful. The bulk of the time will be focused on selected “best of class” exercises to support this alliance within the context of human intuitive foresight, one of the few skills AI cannot yet replace. Dr. Mossbridge has taught these same exercises alongside the other foundations of intuitive foresight to groups of intelligence and national security professionals. Based on these experiences, she anticipates that participants may be surprised at their capacities for skilled intuitive foresight. The workshop will close with a group discussion of important ethical standards for the development of intuitive foresight and other “Jedi skills” amongst the USG talent pool.

If you’re an entrepreneur or an aspiring one, this roundtable discussion with Eric Parker of MakeStartups.com is for you. It’s an extension of Erick’s 20 minute talk on the same subject, and will take a deep dive into what’s necessary for improving entrepreneur support infrastructure in your state.