For those unfamiliar the Dune series, the Butlerian Jihad was a crusade against “thinking machines”. Ultimately computers, and intelligent or thinking machines, even down to calculators are destroyed and banned. Humans who are trained in complex mental maths become known as Mentats, a sort of human computer. Just, uhh, leave all that shit on Bene Tleilax, with their Axalotl Tanks out of it.
Edit: had wrong planet name. IX -> Bene Tleilax
Can I just point out to everyone it is a lot easier to take this point on board now and wage jihad against the machines before they achieve sentience and take over… if you work for an ai company or any other big tech company in any position from floor cleaner to management get busy asap and fuck it up from the inside…
Easier said than done. Security and risk mitigation is one of the first (if not the very first) concern of any IT company in this day and age.
I’ve been a system engineer. Digital assets are locked down, meaning that I couldn’t access anything outside of my scope (which was small and midsize banking websites). Physical assets (servers) sat in three remote locations, highly secure and staffed by a different team. Everything is backed up 5 different ways in 5 different places. Every keystroke is logged. Every door uses a passcard.
It’s built to be a trustless system of sorts, where no single person holds the keys to anything too important. Regular audits and individual accountability for every outage are the norm. About the only way to fuck it up would be to somehow incite a mass exodus of seasoned engineers.
I think what people often miss about these systems (not just IT, but all of our systems from finance to healthcare) is that they are supported by very intelligent, motivated individuals. These people are fighting hard to make sure that nobody can fuck up their work. They aren’t sitting ducks - they are nigh impenetrable sentries.
You didn’t understand the assignment. It’s all about small things. Accidentally cancel a important meeting between higher ups. Put some gunk in the administrators keyboard, which requires a wasteful support ticket to IT. If everyone does there job at 98% competence, the company loses 2% production as a whole.
I get what you’re saying, but reading these examples has me shaking my head in frustration.
The administrator doesn’t work in the office. They work in a different office, or from home.
Meetings between two higher-ups can’t be cancelled because 1. The employee wouldn’t even know that a meeting was scheduled and 2. The meeting is scheduled via Outlook and the only way to cancel it would be to have access to your boss’s computer while it’s unlocked.
But supposing you could do these things, and you caused a 2% loss in efficiency by gunking up the keyboard and canceling the meeting.
Great, they lost 2% for the day. It’s 2% loss of efficiency for people who only work at a 75% efficiency to begin with. They get another keyboard and reschedule the meeting. Tomorrow, you have to start all over again. It won’t be long before you’re found out.
The system is built with these things in mind. The number one security concern in any company is the employees. This is not a new thing and corporations are very good at creating systems of accountability.
Good information, something to think about definitely, but I would say it shows that the best placed people to undermine these systems and companies are people with the professional and inside knowledge.