Ends Justify the Means?

 If you have a good reputation, you can get away with anything…maybe. Depends if you think Machiavelli was being satirical in his writings or serious. Strange that Machiavelli’s writings are meant to be advice when he warns against giving advice. In an upcoming publication, “Machiavelli 4 Everybody” Carol Darr does a masterful job of impersonating Niccolo Machiavelli in this volume summarizing and collating his various writings. What is clear from this is that Machiavelli studied history of power and identified patterns of behavior, decisions and policies that worked and didn’t work in the long run. As the book admits, in Machiavelli’s voice, his writings may appear to be contradictory but in many ways they are sound from this premise: everyone lies, cheats, steals in order to get ahead because we’re selfish, jealous and greedy. So, did Machiavelli do the same in this writing because he too suffers from these vices? The last chapter may give you a few hints and perhaps maintain the mystery. The writings were created after he lost an influential position with a district ruler.

Be wise and seek wise advice is one of the dicta. But if you distrust everyone, why would you? As one executive told Marshall Goldsmith after being advised to seek the input of his staff, “I got here without listening to them. Why should I start now?” And while the writings purport to be honorable and seek agreement, all the advice seems to be framed from the objective of self-service. There is no room for altruism or morality. Yet, of the five ways to solve a conflict, agreement is preferred for family, neighbors, allies and other people close to you; a fight should be the last resort and reserved for enemies or distant connections. This seems to make sense in a practical way but, idiomatically, all government forms work if everyone is an angel, and none work if everyone is a devil. If Machiavelli’s world, who would you really trust—except to believe that everyone is out for themselves? Then the normal appear weird and the weird appear normal in this slanted perspective, one that Darr summarizes as the “author’s” perspective.

If you want to dispel some Machiavellian myths or understand what Machiavelli really wrote, Darr’s book is an enlightening and amusing read as the author has made sense of some disparate advice and rhetorical conundrums in the original writings.

I’m appreciative of the publisher for providing an advanced copy.

Fingers in the Dike Against Ransomware Attacks

 In an upcoming book, “Dark Screens, the author Anja Shortland gives us a compelling history and detailed autopsies of the biggest most recent cybersecurity failures. While breaking down ransomware escapades, we also get an insight into how hacking cartels work, get created and get dismantled. We learn about collaborative efforts to reduce ransomware instances and the costs associated with recovery. Since 2021, the number of incidences has decreased: global efforts have occurred to find and shut down hack-farms; corporations have tightened up security e.g. requiring multi-factor authentication method(s) for all users; identification of risky penetrations—phishing, etc.—has increased. In fact, a Sophos cybersecurity survey—cited by government task forces—shows a decrease in the ransoms awarded to reclaim data and acces, and the number of instances. The leading reason for breaches are holes in IT security systems; for example, one major incident described in the book happened because registered users could access the system by only entering their user ID and no password was required. 

While the recommendations in the book can be found in several task force reports and many cyber security white papers, this seems to be a thorough narrative of how we got here, from the start of personal computers, and the internet to just last year. For anyone who wants to know what’s happening on a global scale to combat this, and read about some successes, this is a must read.