Societys understanding of technology and cybersecurity often is based on simple stereotypes and sensational portrayals in the entertainment media. Ive written about how certain scenarios are entertaining but misleading. Think of black-clad teenage hackers prowling megacities challenging corporate villains. Or think of counterintelligence specialists repositioning a satellite from the back of a surveillance van via a phone call.

But sometimes Hollywood gets it right by depicting reality in ways that both entertain and educate. And thats important, because whether its a large company, government or your personal information, we all share many of the same cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. As a former cybersecurity industry practitioner and current cybersecurity researcher, I believe the final season of Star Trek: Picard is the latest example of entertainment media providing useful lessons about cybersecurity and the nature of the modern world.

So how does Star Trek: Picard relate to cybersecurity?

The nature of the threat

The shows protagonist is Jean-Luc Picard, a retired Starfleet admiral who commanded the starship Enterprise-D in a previous series. Starfleet is the military wing of the United Federation of Planets, of which Earth is a member. In Season 3, the final season, Picards ultimate enemy, the Borg, returns to try conquering humanity again. The Borg is a cybernetic collective of half-human, half-machine drones led by a cyborg queen.

The Borg has partnered with other villains and worked for over a decade to deploy hidden agents able to compromise the DNA data contained in the software underpinning the transporter a teleportation device used regularly by Starfleet personnel. Over many years, a certain subgroup of Starfleet personnel had their DNA altered by using the transporter.

Thus, in launching their final attack, the Borg is able to instantly activate thousands of drones to do its bidding in the form of altered, compromised Starfleet personnel. As Geordi La Forge, the Enterprise-Ds engineer, notes, Theyve been assimilating the entire fleet this whole time, without anyone ever knowing it.

The Borgs prolonged, stealthy infiltration of the federation is indicative of how todays most effective cyberattackers work. While its relatively easy to detect when hackers attempt to breach a system from the outside, experts worry about the effects of an enemy infiltrating critical systems from within. Attackers can put malicious code in software during manufacturing or in software updates, both of which are avenues of attack that do not arouse suspicion until the compromised systems are activated or targeted.

This underscores the importance of ensuring the security and integrity of digital supply chains from product development at the vendor through product deployment at client sites to ensure no silent drones, such as malware, are waiting to be activated by an adversary.

Equally important, Star Trek: Picard presents the very real and insidious nature of the insider threat faced by todays organizations. While not infected with a cybernetic virus, recently arrested Massachusetts Air National Guard airman Jack Teixeira shows the damage that can occur when a trusted employee has malicious intent or becomes co-opted and inflicts significant damage on an employer.

In some cases, these compromised or malicious individuals can remain undiscovered for years. And some global adversaries of the U.S., such as China and Russia, are known for taking a long-term perspective when it comes to planning and conducting espionage activities or cyberattacks.

Humans remain the weakest link

Synchronistic technology that allows every ship in Starfleet to operate as one. An impenetrable armada. Unity and defense. The ultimate safeguard.

With these words, humanitys military defenders activated a feature that linked every Starfleet vessel together under one unified automated command system. While intended to serve as an emergency capability, this system called Fleet Formation was quickly hijacked by the Borg as part of its attack on Earth. In essence, Starfleet created a Borg-like defense system that the Borg itself used to attack the federation.

Here, the most well-intentioned plans for security were thwarted by enemies who used humanitys own technologies against them. In the real world, capabilities such as on-demand real-time software updates, ChatGPT and centrally administered systems sound enticing and offer conveniences, cost savings or new capabilities. However, the lesson here is that organizations should not put them into widespread use without carefully considering as many of the potential risks or vulnerabilities as practical.

But even then, technology alone cant protect humans from ourselves after all, its people who develop, design, select, administer and use technology, which means human flaws are present in these systems, too. Such failings frequently lead to a stream of high-profile cybersecurity incidents.

Resiliency is not futile

To counter the Borgs final assault on Earth, Picards crew borrows its old starship, Enterprise-D, from a fleet museum. The rationale is that its ship is the only major combat vessel not connected to the Borg collective via Starfleets compromised Fleet Formation protocol and therefore is able to operate independently during the crisis. As La Forge notes, Something older, analog. Offline from the others.

From a cybersecurity perspective, ensuring the availability of information resources is one of the industrys guiding principles. Here, the Enterprise-D represents defenders in response to a cyber incident using assets that are outside of an adversarys reach. Perhaps more important, the vessel symbolizes the need to think carefully before embracing a completely networked computing environment or relying on any single company or provider of services and connectivity for daily operations.

From natural disasters to cyberattack, whats your plan if your IT environment becomes corrupted or inaccessible? Can your organization stay operational and still provide necessary services? For critical public messaging, do governments and corporations have their own uncorruptible Enterprise-D capabilities to fall back on, such as the fediverse, the decentralized microblogging platform that is immune to the impulsive manipulations of Twitters ownership?

Prepare for the unknown

The Star Trek universe explores the unknown in both the universe and contemporary society. How the crews deal with these experiences relies on their training, the appreciation of broad perspectives and ability to devise innovative solutions to the crisis of the week. Often, such solutions are derived from characters interests in music, painting, archaeology, history, sports and other nontechnical areas of study, recreation or expertise.

Similarly, as modern digital defenders, to successfully confront our own cyber unknowns we need a broad appreciation of things beyond just cybersecurity and technology. Its one thing to understand at a technical level how a cyberattack occurs and how to respond. But its another thing to understand the broader, perhaps more systemic, nuanced, organizational or international factors that may be causes or solutions, too.

Lessons from literature, history, psychology, philosophy, law, management and other nontechnical disciplines can inform how organizations plan for and respond to cybersecurity challenges of all types. Balancing solid technical knowledge with foundations in the liberal arts and humanities allows people to adapt comfortably to constantly evolving technologies and shifting threats.

Dystopic metaphors in fiction often reflect current social concerns, and the Star Trek universe is no different. Although rooted in a science fiction fantasy, Star Trek: Picard provides some accurate, practical and understandable cybersecurity reminders for today.

Season 3, in particular, offers viewers both entertainment and education indeed, the best of both worlds.

Richard Forno is Principal Lecturer in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The news announced by Musk himself late on Thursday no doubt is balm to the soul of many Tesla investors, given fears he was spending too much time trying to keep his social media platform afloat to pay attention to the burgeoning issues at his carmaker. 

According to several media reports, the job is going to Linda Yaccarinowho has just quit NBCUniversal.

The chair of global advertising and partnerships at Comcasts NBC Universal manages a staff of about 2,000 employeeslarger than Twiters own workforcewhere she oversees all advertising, partnerships and marketing. She also is responsible for the monetization strategy behind the companys Peacock ad-supported streaming service. 

That makes her ideally placed to credibly coax advertisers back to the platform, a fact veteran tech reporter Kara Swisher pointed out when she predicted her appointment over other candidates like Sheryl Sandberg and Susan Wojcicki.

Excited to announce that Ive hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!

My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.

Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023

Linda Yaccarino was early to tech focus for a media exec, which was unusual at the time and she was constantly trying to grok it, despite wariness, Swisher posted on Thursday, citing her organization of a tech event all the way back in late 2014. Shes obviously not a media luddite, as many were at the time.

Yaccarino says she is inspired by provocative leadership

Given Musks past criticism that ex-CEO Parag Agrawal and many of his team barely used their own product, it might be somewhat surprising Yaccarino isnt a prolific Twitter user either. 

But Musk himself is the exception: few executives comment on Twitter and when they do they often rely on executive communications assistants that ghostwrite their social media posts to ensure close alignment with their companys key strategic messaging. 

Only about 1,200 tweets are posted to Yaccarinos timeline, retweets included, and she follows roughly the same number of accounts including well-known conservative accounts like Libs of TikTok but also Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Fortune as well.

Her profile describes her as inspired by provocative leadership, which certainly seems to be a good fit with Musk, known for his penchant for using Twitter to wind people up for fun. 

When she tweets it is often related to fashion, women in tech or sports such as the Kentucky Derby that was recently broadcast by her network (leaving out references to the seven horses euthanized that weekend).

By far her most popular tweet, however, was a link to a session with advertising execs she moderated in April, where Musk was invited to explain his Twitter 2.0 plans. 

Shes interviewed Musk and knows all about the challenges he faces

In the 45-minute talk, she praised his vision for a social media platform that would create attractive communities for companies, where users can talk about the brands they love and buy their good or service in one easy click. 

Yet she also reminded Musk about the primacy of trust for the ad buyers in that room and their need not to fear products they placed feature prominently next to examples of hate speech. 

In this vein, the NBC Universal exec urged him to reinstate Twitters disbanded Trust & Safety Council as a recurring feedback loop for ad execs, to feel more comfortable buying virtual space on his platform. 

We can all agree this freedom of speech, deserves a bit more reach. Heres my full chat with @elonmusk at @PossibleEvent. https://t.co/JwPzHOgi9s

Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) April 20, 2023

The people in this room are your accelerated path to profitability, she said, urging him to follow on his own advice and not post anything after 3 am. 

Musk pushed back on any implicit suggestion he should bow to ad buyers that wanted him to tone down his more polarising views. Instead, he argued that just because he is the companys owner, he shouldnt be held to any higher standard than the average Twitter user.

I will aspire to tweet less after 3 am, but if I were to say yes, you could influence me, that would be wrong. That would be very wrong, because that would be a diminishment of freedom of speech, he shot back. If that means losing advertising dollars, we lose it.

Should Yaccarinio take on the top Twitter job, it is clear she knows exactly what the challenges it faces, is well acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of her future boss and will be going into the assignment eyes wide open.

High school students are having less sexual intercourse. Thats what the studies say. But that doesnt mean theyre having less sex.

The language of young love and lust, and the actions behind it, are evolving. And the shift is not being adequately captured in national studies, experts say.

For years, studies have shown a decline in the rates of American high school students having sex. That trend continued, not surprisingly, in the first years of the pandemic, according to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found that 30% of teens in 2021 said they had ever had sex, down from 38% in 2019 and a huge drop from three decades ago, when more than half of teens reported having sex.

The Associated Press took the findings to teenagers and experts around the country to ask for their interpretation. Parents: Some of the answers may surprise you.

The meaning of sex: Depends on who you ask

For starters, what is the definition of sex?

Hmm. Thats a good question, says Rose, 17, a junior at a New England high school.

She thought about it for 20 seconds, then listed a range of possibilities for heterosexual sex, oral sex and relations between same-sex or LGBTQ partners. On her campus, short-term hookups known as situationships are typically low commitment and high risk from both health and emotional perspectives.

There are also sneaky links when you hook up in secret and dont tell your friends. I have a feeling a lot more people are quote unquote having sex just not necessarily between a man and a woman.

For teens today, the conversation about sexuality is moving from a binary situation to a spectrum and so are the kinds of sex people are having. And while the vocabulary around sex is shifting, the main question on the CDC survey has been worded the same way since the government agency began its biannual study in 1991: Have you ever had sexual intercourse?

Honestly, that question is a little laughable, says Kay, 18, who identifies as queer and attends a public high school near Lansing, Michigan. Theres probably a lot of teenagers who are like, No, Ive never had sexual intercourse, but Ive had other kinds of sex.

The AP agreed to use teenagers first or middle names for this article because of a common concern they expressed about backlash at school, at home and on social media for speaking about their peers sex lives and LGBTQ+ relations.

Sexual identity is evolving

Several experts say the CDC findings could signal a shift in how teen sexuality is evolving, with gender fluidity becoming more common along with a decrease in stigma about identifying as not heterosexual.

They point to another finding in this years study that found the proportion of high school kids who identify as heterosexual dropped to about 75%, down from about 89% in 2015, when the CDC began asking about sexual orientation. Meanwhile, the share who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual rose to 15%, up from 8% in 2015.

I just wonder, if youth were in the room when the questions were being created, how they would be worded differently, said Taryn Gal, executive director of the Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health.

Sex is just one of the topics covered by the CDC study, called the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. One of the main sources of national data about high school students on a range of behaviors, it is conducted every two years and asks about 100 questions on topics including smoking, drinking, drug use, bullying, carrying guns and sex. More than 17,000 students at 152 public and private high schools across the country responded to the 2021 survey.

Its a fine line we have to try to walk, says Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDCs Division of Adolescent and School Health, which leads the study.

From a methodological standpoint, changing a question would make it harder to compare trends over time. The goal is to take a national snapshot of teenage behavior, with the understanding that questions might not capture all the nuance. It doesnt allow us to go as in depth in some areas as we would like, Ethier says.

The national survey, for example, does not ask about oral sex, which carries the risk of spreading sexually transmitted infections. As for sexual intercourse, Ethier says, We try to use a term that we know young people understand, realizing that it may not encompass all the ways young people would define sex.

Is less teen sex good news?

Beyond semantics, there are a multitude of theories on why the reported rates of high school sex have steadily declined and what it might say about American society.

I imagine some parents are rejoicing and some are concerned, and I think there is probably good cause for both, says Sharon Hoover, co-director of the National Center for School Mental Health at the University of Maryland. Health officials like to see trends that result in fewer teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

But what we dont know is what this means for the trajectory of young people, Hoover says.

This years decrease, the sharpest drop ever recorded, clearly had a lot to do with the pandemic, which kept kids isolated, cut off from friends and immersed in social media. Even when life started returning to normal, many kids felt uncomfortable with face-to-face interaction and found their skills in verbal communication had declined, Hoover said.

The survey was conducted in the fall of 2021, just as many K-12 students returned to in-person classrooms after a year of online school.

Several teens interviewed said that when schools reopened, they returned with intense social anxiety compounded by fears of catching COVID. That added a new layer to pre-pandemic concerns about sexual relations like getting pregnant or catching STIs.

I remember thinking, What if I get sick? What if I get a disease? What if I dont have the people skills for this? said Kay, the 18-year-old from Michigan. All those what ifs definitely affected my personal relationships, and how I interacted with strangers or personal partners.

Another fear is the prying eyes of parents, says college student Abby Tow, who wonders if helicopter parenting has played a role in what she calls the baby-fication of our generation. A senior at the University of Oklahoma, Tow knows students in college whose parents monitor their whereabouts using tracking apps.

Parents would get push notifications when their students left dorms and returned home to dorms, says Tow, 22, majoring in social work and gender studies.

Tow also notices a general sense of disillusionment in her generation. She cites statistics that fewer teenagers today are getting drivers licenses. I think, she says, there is a correlation between students being able to drive and students having sex.

Another cause for declining sex rates could be easy access to online porn, experts say. By the age of 17, three-quarters of teenagers have viewed pornography online, with the average age of first exposure at 12, according to a report earlier this year by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit child advocacy group.

Porn is becoming sex ed for young people, says Justine Fonte, a New York-based sex education teacher. She says pornography shapes and skews adolescent ideas about sexual acts, power and intimacy. You can rewind, fast forward, play as much as you want. It doesnt require you to think about how the person is feeling.

Is there an evolving definition of consent?

Several experts said they hoped the decline could be partly attributed to a broader understanding of consent and an increase in comprehensive sex education being taught in many schools, which has become a target in ongoing culture wars.

Unlike abstinence-only programs, the lessons include discussion on understanding healthy relationships, gender identity, sexual orientation and preventing unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Contrary to what critics think, she said, young people are more likely to delay the onset of sexual activity if they have access to sex education.

Some schools and organizations supplement sex education with peer counseling, where teens are trained to speak to each other about relationships and other topics that young people might feel uncomfortable raising with adults.

Annika, 14, is a peer ambassador trained by Planned Parenthood and a high school freshman in Southern California. Shes offered guidance to friends in toxic relationships and worries about the ubiquity of porn among her peers, especially male friends. Its clear to her that the pandemic stunted sex lives.

The CDCs 2023 survey, which is currently underway, will show if the decline was temporary. Annika suspects it will show a spike. In her school, at least, students seem to be making up for lost time.

People lost those two years so theyre craving it more, she said. She has often been in a school bathroom where couples in stalls next to her are engaged in sexual activities.

Again, the definition of sex? Any sexual act, Annika says. And sexual intercourse is one type of act.

To get a truly accurate reading of teen sexuality, the evolution of language needs to be taken into account, says Dr. John Santelli, a Columbia University professor who specializes in adolescent sexuality.

The word intercourse used to have another meaning, he points out. Intercourse used to just mean talking.

___

The AP education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Organizers say they rejected a request from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make a video address to the final of the pan-continental music competition on Saturday. He was expected to urge the world to continue its support for Ukraines fight to repel Russian invasion.

The European Broadcasting Union, a grouping of national public broadcasters that runs Eurovision, said that letting Zelenskyy participate would breach the nonpolitical nature of the event.

Zelenskyys request to address the audience at the Eurovision Song Contest, whilst made with laudable intentions, regrettably cannot be granted by the European Broadcasting Union management as it would be against the rules of the event, the organization said.

Zelenskyy spokesman Sergii Nykyforov denied that the president had asked to speak to the event, which will be watched by an estimated 160 million people.

The Office of the President of Ukraine did not address the organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest to offer (Zelenskyys) online performance during the finals or at any other stage of the contest, he said on Facebook.

In the 15 months since Russia invaded, Zelenskyy has addressed dozens of global gatherings to promote his countrys cause. He has spoken to legislatures around the world by video and a few times in person and appealed to crowds at the Glastonbury music festival, the Grammy Awards and the Berlin Film Festival.

But he reportedly was denied permission to speak at the Academy Awards in March, and Ukraine says that FIFA, international soccers governing body, also refused Zelenskyys request to send a video message to the World Cup in November 2022.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks spokesman said the U.K. government was disappointed by the decision from the European Broadcasting Union, though there are no plans to challenge it.

The values and freedoms that President Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine are fighting for are not political, theyre fundamental, Sunak spokesman Max Blain said.

Founded in 1956 to help heal a continent shattered by war, Eurovision strives to keep pop and politics separate. Overtly political lyrics, signs and symbols are banned.

But politics cant be shut out entirely. Russia was banned from the contest after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Belarus had been kicked out the previous year over its governments clampdown on dissent.

Last years contest was won by Ukraine, and the U.K. has stepped in to host on its behalf.

Acts from 26 countries will compete in Saturdays live final at the Liverpool Arena, which will be co-hosted by Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina. It will feature a performance by last years Eurovision winner, Kalush Orchestra, and other Ukrainian performers, and images of Ukraine will be shown before each act performs.

We believe that this is the best way to reflect and celebrate Ukraines Eurovision Song Contest win and show we are united by music during these hard times, the broadcasting union said.

Tens of thousands of music fans from across Europe have flocked to Liverpool, which won a competition among U.K. cities to host the contest. The birthplace of The Beatles has thrown itself into the party spirit, with pubs and venues across the city holding Eurovision parties and a multinational fan zone featuring performances by Eurovision stars past and present.

Organizers say they have taken steps to ensure the phone and online voting isnt disrupted by cyberattacks, working with the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre to bolster the events defenses.

Martin Green, the BBCs managing director of the event, said that preparations were in a really good place, though he wouldnt give details of security arrangements.