The Seventh Sense summary

Rewind to the dawn of the internet age. If you were told back then that the development of the web would eventually lead to Syrian terrorists finding an easy means to indoctrinate children, would you have supported such innovations? The influence that networks currently have on society is more far-reaching than anyone could have anticipated.

Institutions are struggling to keep up with the progression of these networks, as is evidenced by the way terror attacks are handled. After 9/11, the war against terrorism was launched. A Pentagon analysis team surveyed records of terrorists’ deleted phone calls and SMS and discovered that terrorist networks were developing at a much faster rate than the government or military were able to monitor.

Historically, emperors, presidents, kings, queens and authority figures like doctors or lawyers have presided over power and influence in predetermined hierarchical structures. However, in current times, world leaders and other experts are in a constant battle to maintain their power thanks to challenges from modern networks.

Networks are characterized by two different forms of power: high concentration and large distribution. Doctors are one group under threat from powerful networks. Doctors were once considered to be the main source of medical knowledge, but that no longer seems to be the case.

The networking age has offered up a range of possibilities, but it’s important to remember that each innovation comes with a unique set of flaws and unforeseeable consequences. As the French philosopher Paul Virilio once said: “When you invent the plane, you invent the plane crash.”

Take cyber attacks, a major issue today. Back in 2015, Jung Hoon Lee, a South Korean hacker, was awarded $225,000 at an annual hacking competition for accessing the most vital networking programs at the time by infiltrating web browsers such as Apple’s Safari and Google Chrome.

A closed network such as a Wi-Fi network is referred to as a gateland. Gatekeepers have to grant access. Gatekeepers are people or protocols with the power to decide who’s allowed to gain access to a particular closed network. In the case of your work Wi-Fi, the encrypted Wi-Fi password is the gatekeeper – only those who know it are permitted to have a speedy connection to the internet on a secure network.

The higher the number of people who use a certain gateland, the harder it becomes to utilize an alternative. The economist Brian Arthur discussed this concept in the Harvard Business Review, referring to the impact of a phenomenon known as “network effects.”

One day, the process of withdrawing bank notes from an ATM and giving it to another person who ends up depositing that same cash into their own account will be an outdated system replaced with fully digitized payments. This may sound promising, but there are several risks involved in a new, interconnected world of digital currencies. Those who seek to maintain anonymity and be untraceable could pose serious problems, but fortunately, there are solutions in place.

Hard gatekeeping serves to protect those inside a network’s community. Hard gatekeeping is the development of a protected, trusted and well-designed community that safeguards its users from both the perils of online trade and cyber threats.