Cybersecurity starts by better understanding technology

I recently purchased a lens capable of capturing with mesmerizing clarity the individual hairs on the nuthatches eating from the feeder outside our dining-room window. It’s just one more piece of technology in my ever-expanding collection — a collection for which I make no apologies.

Camera gear, whether video, drone or still, is something I am drawn to. Technology, in general, has always been able to pique and hold my interest.

When I read books more often than I do now (perhaps technology is to blame for this), Ursula Franklin’s Massey Lecture entitled The Real World of Technology was one I would reference often. It is short, dense and, in my estimation, accurately portrayed the depth and nuance of humanity’s relationship with technology. You want to read it.

Anecdotally, however, I have my own thoughts on the matter — thoughts that were, no doubt, influenced by Franklin’s work.

Glacier FarmMedia didn’t ask me to write about cybersecurity, but they did ask me if I had anything to say on the topic.

Initially, the answer was a hard “no.” I have never been hacked, nor have I had my identity stolen. I am not naïve enough to believe that I am impervious to such intrusions of privacy, but, as of the writing of this column, no such attack has befallen me.

My “no” quickly became a “yes,” however, after being struck with the connection I could make with technology and my infatuation with it.

Up for sale is the accessible and attractive idea that technology will make our lives easier and people are buying it. We are seeing this play out with increasing persistence in the agricultural space.

What I enjoy about technology is its utility for me. In my weaker moments, I may buy something believing it will allow me to spend more time doing fun things, but I’d like to think that most of the time I know that increasing my tech reserve only increases my workload.

Every piece of technology I have purchased for personal or work consumes a portion of my overall brain capacity, like finding room for another tractor in your machine shed. There are limits.

The technological inventory on our farms and in our lives should grow in-step with our capacity to comprehend and achieve some mastery over it. Every new piece of gear for me, regardless of whether it’s for the farm or for personal use, takes something out of me. If it’s for the farm, how should it be stored? What can it all do? How do I use it to work for me?

I was reticent to talk about cybersecurity in a pandemic climate, as the coffee shops in our rural communities don’t need more fodder to be negative or more fuel for conspiracy theorists pontificating about Big Sister and Big Brother watching our every move.

In short, if you don’t understand the tech you’re using, quit using it until you do. Reducing the targeted ads you’re receiving for the products you were chatting about with your partner last night to a conspiracy theory about government is just lazy thinking.

There are nefarious technologies out there and sometimes there is good reason to sound the alarm, but to arrive at conspiratorial accusations, the user has to understand what he or she is talking about in greater detail than what conspiracy theories are able to offer.

Farming moved from stick shift to the cockpit of a new 747 very quickly and our households did as well. I used to play a computer game called Track and Field that was loaded on a cassette tape. It took a bit of code to get to the play action, and, once there, moving my guy required the rhythmic pressing of the left and right arrow keys. Things have changed.

Our tractors talk directly to the dealerships from where they were purchased, and our computers and phones and headsets seem to be in a constant two-way dialogue between our homes and the myriad networks to which we are connected.

I can’t imagine it would take a lot of hacking to be able to virtually knock at your door. Instead of letting this notion awaken the fatalist in you and scare you aware from embracing the technologies that can work for you, let it inspire you to learn more.

This is how I would write about cybersecurity, if someone were to ask me for such a column.

I would then, perhaps, mention that on Jan. 20, Glacier FarmMedia, in partnership with the Community Safety Knowledge Alliance and Public Safety Canada, is hosting a webinar on cybersecurity, featuring presentations from an expert and an investigator. Sign up here: bit.ly/GFMfarmsafe.

The lens that I bought requires me to embark on a steep learning curve. I will also have to find a place to store it, as well as train my brain to think about it when conditions are ripe for its use. These things, while they sound fun, take mental energy. I have found, more often than not, that when people purge their households of things they call clutter in search of the simple life, what seems more likely to be happening is that they no longer have the capacity to hold all the pieces of the puzzle together.

The technologies available to us on our farms and in our daily lives can do great things for us and our operations, provided we understand them. There is a pecking order to this all, and, you guessed it, we’re still on top.

Toban Dyck farms in southern Manitoba and shares his thoughts through media platforms.

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