bit-spoons versus bit-power: a love letter to Maj. Jason Lowery, United States Space Force
antlers make great trophies for apex predators
Dear Major Lowery,
Everything is bullshit. Except for raw power. For watts. Except for Bitcoin.
I had the first half of that argument down pat years ago, but it took your extraordinary book to finish the sentence. Softwar is one of the most thought-provoking books I've read in years. Despite the clear lack of polish, the numerous typographical errors, the frequent begging of questions (hint: that word, it does not mean what you think it means), and the amateurish formatting that makes it look like a college paper (which of course it is--congrats on your Masters at MIT, by the way), this book deserves laser eyes for the raw power of its argument, which rings true.
Who am I? Cybersecurity for 25 years, crypto / web3 security for five. So while you spend half of the book handholding readers on computer theory, the irrelevance of ethics in raw geopolitics, and explaining the difference between proof of work and proof of stake, I found myself along for the ride high-fiving as you go. Power is power and the rest is bullshit.
But what really hit me so hard about your masters thesis, Major Lowery, is that it smacked me upside the face at a deeply personal level. You don't know me, you have never met me, and you ignored my one Twiter DM two years ago (well-played--I'm sure you are forbidden to engage with a journalist, currently practicing or no). All the same, we have a lot in common.
You did ROTC. I did ROTC. You finished. I gave my CO the middle finger and told him to fuck off. Risk my life to defend these morons? *rude noise* you gotta be fucking kidding me.
Now you put thermonuclear weapons in cislunar orbit to fight over LaGrange points, and I defend an alt L1 as their CISO. I know, I know, but it pays the bills, sir. And when you go toe to toe with America's nuclear adversaries, and I go toe to toe with the North Korean military, no amount of bullshit is going to defend you or me. There is no appeal to law. There is no appeal to right or wrong or "norms". Either they nuke you or they don't. Either they hack my employer, or they don't. Either we do our jobs well, or we do not.
Action talks and bullshit walks in security. There is no room or time or patience for bullshit.
And that is the core argument of your thesis, is it not, Major?
I can't help but think that mid-level officers like yourself are the very reason why ROTC continues to exist. As Charles Dunlap’s famous US War College article “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012” once argued, the whole point of ROTC is to prevent a military coup in the United States by populating officer ranks with contrarian thinkers such as yourself.
(For those in the back--the military academies churn out ideologically-conformist robots with group mind bordering on a cult. This is especially true of the Air Force Academy. Before joining the Space Force, Major Lowery served in the Air Force.)
But what I can't stop thinking about is that you and I see the same facts, think the same about the facts, agree on the consequences of those facts, and yet you have made muchly different life choices. I find that fascinating, and baffling, and am as equally curious to tug at that thread (not: beg the question) as I am at the hefty substance of your argument itself.
The rest of this love letter, as seductive as it may or may not turn out to be, consists of the following sections (because all love letters deserve a table of contents, don't you think?):
a summary of your argument, so you know I understand it, and as an intro for those watching
criticism and open questions. some I think you will immediately acknowledge to be true, others may shed light in your blind spots
what's changed since your book was published
what happens now?
so what's this book about, anyway?
Major Lowery, your book is not for the squeamish. I love that. You inherited a cattle ranch and you are a military officer. You are a trained killer on both counts. Your family kills cattle for food, your job as a military officer is to kill people, and you are accustomed to predation and bloodshed as a normal part of life. You continue to work as a professional killer for the continued profit of of the American oligarchy. You do not do this work reluctantly but clearly take relish in it.
Indeed, you and Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler agree on the same set of facts but from a different point of view: "I was a gangster for capitalism." Running an Al Capone—style protection racket for central bankers to expand both empire abroad and tyranny at home seemed to him a bad thing in retrospect. Your point of view seems to be that it is a good thing. And I think you would agree that it is a racket.
In your book, you spend hundreds of pages going down fascinating rabbit holes in biology, evolution, anthropology, history, and technological innovation to justify the following observation: might makes right, and if folks don't like it, too fucking bad.
You do not distinguish between war among nations, civil war, and revolution. To those who would say "violence is not the answer to solving our differences", you would--violently--disagree, and argue that violence is in fact the only answer to solving our differences, the only solution that has proven itself to work over the last four billion years, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.
But what does all this have to do with Bitcoin? Two things, I'd say.
First, that Bitcoin--or bit-power, as you prefer to call it to avoid metaphor, a choice I agree with--is raw power. It consists of watts. It is might and that might can and likely will make right. And what kind of might is it and what kind of right will it make?
Well, that leads to the bounded prosperity trap created by strategic nuclear weapons. Humankind stands at an evolutionary turning point in our history. The risk of mutually-assured destruction continues to hover over our heads as it has for 80-plus years. Blocked from strategic victory, we are now exploring new forms of mutually-assured destruction with AI drone swarms, which also create the risk of an extinction event for the human species.
Bitcoin--or rather, bit-power--fixes this, or so your argument goes.
The assertion that Bitcoin (bit-power) prevents nuclear war is a bold argument, sir. It brings back echoes of my first encounter with Bitcoin at LaBitConf in Buenos Aires in 2013. "Bitcoin will end war." I didn't get it at the time. I didn't understand fiat money. I didn't understand that the whole point of an infinite money printer is to subsidize war, and that by cutting off governments' ability to print money, we hamstring their ability to make war.
That last paragraph is not your argument, by the way, but a complementary point that I think supports your bold—even radical—assertion.
Your argument arrives at the same conclusion through a different path:
Bitcoin (bit-power) is digitized energy, bits reverse-optimized to be as expensive as possible. And a global power competition between nations to possess bit-power could result in mutually-assured preservation.
When my enemy uses bit-power, we both get stronger and more secure.
Human antlers, to follow your biology argument, that allow us to contest for dominance without fratricide.
This is a novel, compelling, and striking argument that all my quarter century of instincts in cybersecurity tell me rings true.
Bit-power is not just a financial tool for speculation or hoarding or an inflation hedge. It represents non-lethal power projection on the cyber domain.
For fifteen years I have held true Joanna Rutkowska's dictum that there are only three meaningful defensive security strategies:
security by obscurity
security by correctness
security by isolation
But now I see we may need to add a fourth:
security by physical cost function protocols
This blows my mind because it means bit-power can serve not only as "digital gold" but also as a pragmatic defensive cybersecurity technique.
This is why I call this a love letter, Major Lowery. I will likely spend the next few years of my life obsessively thinking about this idea and exploring it further.
but how about some criticism?
As a security professional, you know you have blind spots, and are always asking yourself what your known unknowns are. You say as much towards the end of your thesis.
There is one GIGANTIC elephant in the room that is hugely relevant to your thesis that you completely ignore. Once I tell you what it is you will admit to yourself privately I am correct, although I do not believe you would ever say so publicly, or even in private to me.
Criticism #1: What about existing power projection on the cyber domain?
You are a major in the Space Force. You have a TS/SCI clearance. Power projection in space almost certainly involved working with CYBERCOM to hack / jam opponent satellites. You are surely well aware of CYBERCOM and NSA's technical capabilities and practices. The United States and other nations project power both externally against their adversaries and as well as oppressively at home using their tools of mass surveillance, backdooring software and hardware, and targeted hacking. These tactics are used both to impose empire abroad as well as tyranny at home.
And you hint over and over again at cyber tyranny, but dance around the issue like it’s radioactive, and even suggest bit-power is how American citizens can fight domestic cyber tyranny.
Your entire book asks the question (not begs) "what should we do about warfare on the cyber domain?" and yet somehow you fail to include this blindingly obvious context?
The only reasonable explanation I can arrive at to explain this bizarre absence is the fact that you are a military officer with a Top Secret clearance and to discuss knowledge in the public domain, such as the Snowden documents, would be to violate your security clearance and risk decommissioning and perhaps the brig. Those documents remain classified and it is technically illegal for you to read or to know them (as ridiculous as that is). I have enough respect for you to believe that you have in fact read them but clearly it would not be prudent for you to say so publicly.
Criticism #2: why would America abdicate its current power?
The biggest argument against your thesis, and the reason I'm sure that your top brass ordered you to unpublish your book (thanks for that, by the way--anything the Pentagon doesn't want me to read goes straight to the top of my list lol), is that the greatest winner of bullshit abstract power structures on the cyber domain is the US itself.
Why on earth (or space) would the US abdicate its privileged position as god-king of abstract power in software land, and embrace instead the non-bullshit alternative?
Your answer, I think, would be “let's not be Constantinople”--if we don't proactively embrace this, others will, and that's how the empire ends. I don't think the morons with stars playing politics at the Pentagon are capable of grasping that argument, Major Lowery.
Criticism #3 -- ok, so bit-power is zero-trust, but what about the upper layer of abstract power (software it runs on)?
Maybe I trust the Bitcoin (bit-power) protocol, but what about the security of the reverse-optimized bits themselves?
What about key theft?
In my own work, we see North Korea (and state actors drinking their milkshake pretending to be DPRK) stealing cryptographic keys right and left. Bitcoin doesn't fix this.
To give you another example, it would be foolish to trust Ledger for self-custody. Ledger is an abstract power structure compromised by the French government. The software to manage your bit-power receipts runs on vulnerable and likely compromised operating systems like Microsoft Windows, Apple's MacOS, even Linux. I think you would agree with this analysis.
My interest is not as a theoretician but as a pragmatic builder and defender. So how do I take this idea and implement it in reality? Is your theory pragmatic and relevant to the real world?
You reasonably argue that even nuclear-powered governments cannot destroy the Bitcoin network. But they can confiscate the bit-power / bit-stamps / bit-receipts using abstract power, either through counterparty risk (confiscation from exchanges), supply chain attacks (confiscation by holding a gun to the head of Ledger's CEO), supply chain attacks against operating systems, or app store, by hacking users, or TEMPEST attacks, sneak and peak theft, or in the final instance, coming to your house with a warrant (a gun) and confiscating your bit-power stamps.
Perhaps the answer to that question is a Pyrrhic victory against dissidents they target and people who leave their bit-power on exchanges, but that results in tactical success and grand strategic failure. Could a country that does that compete with its adversaries?
Criticism #4: practical implementation
If we add security by physical cost function protocols to Rutkowska's statement of defensive security tactics, then again what does that look like in practice?
Consider a concrete example that happened last week. Public reports suggests that Ukraine hacked a Russian drone factory and wiped all their data including backups, thus harming Russian drone manufacturing R&D and production during the Russia-Ukraine war.
From a neutral discussion of warfighting (regardless of whether this specific incident is true or not, which is irrelevant here), this is clearly a valid warfighting tactic that harms an opponent by projecting power into the real world from the cyber domain.
What would inserting bit-power into this conversation have done?
If the Russians wanted to defend their drone factory from hacking, do they charge Bitcoin tolls on SSH logins and API calls? Does that even make sense? Even if it did, how much would you have to charge? Surely Ukraine would gladly spend tens of millions of dollars worth of bit-power to cause this level of damage to their opponent. But does that mean legitimate external SSH sessions and API calls must also spend ten million dollars worth of bit-power to log in to perform legitimate daily tasks?
I suppose charging Bitcoin tolls to send email or HTTP GET requests as a way of reducing spam of DDoS attacks might make sense, if the toll was miniscule enough to enable end users but also to defend against attackers. But even then, micropayments for content has so far failed.
Maybe if Bitcoin were Turing complete we could offer some kind of speedbump or defense via an EVM-like calculation of some kind that blocks / delays authentication. But again, what would that even look like in practice?
As a pragmatic doer and not a theorist I would like to explore answers to these questions, and the theory you've proposed--as exciting as it is--offers no real hint as to what pragmatic solutions would look like.
Criticism #5: hacking the real world
You keep saying that we need a way to fight wars on cyber domain that have physical effects in the real world. Um, what about Aurora? What about the 1982 Siberian pipeline explosion? What about the 2013 death of Michael Hastings a week after Snowden came forward? What about hacking cars, satellites, aircraft, the energy grid, sewer systems--things that have all happened and will continue to happen?
This is probably part of the deliberate choice to not discuss widely-known information that you have Top Secret insight into, but all the same feels like a gaping hole in your work--not because it necessarily weakens your argument but fails to include the full context.
What has changed since you wrote this book?
The GENIUS Act passed last week. Early returns suggest this bill is just as bad, if not worse, than the Patriot Act, in terms of shredding rights and freedoms of American citizens and implementing even greater cyber tyranny.
China already has a CBDC, Russian and the EU are both doubling down on a CBDC, and the GENIUS Act legalizes CBDCs through backdoor provisions easily exploitable as part of the legal abstract power structure.
So it's not clear that any major world government is seriously considering using Bitcoin as a tool of statecraft, except for maybe those heavyweights Bhutan and El Salvador.
That being said, we can game out the grand strategy. Bit-power favors the weak over the strong. We can easily incorporate Bitcoin into Orwell's famous essay "You and the Atom Bomb".
So it is logical that adoption will begin with individuals, and then scale to companies, smaller nations, and the final bosses will be large nations themselves.
How will this likely play out?
Hard money drives out soft money. And despite Bitcoin's non-financial properties, the sharp end of the spear in terms of adoption will be financial.
The US dollar, despite the infinite money printer, remains harder money than the pesos and rupees of the world. The Canadian snow peso will be gone in five years. The US will export its inflation to the rest of the world using CBDCs (likely via USDC).
But again, since hard money drives out soft money, and Bitcoin is the hardest money on earth, Bitcoin is the monetary apex predator that will devour the US dollar over time.
So we will see a chain of predation where smaller currencies are devoured by larger currencies, until Bitcoin eats them all. The whole process could take 20-30 years, and will likely involve kinetic violence against those who hold bit-stamps. But in terms of grand strategy, that seems to be the inevitable game theory ending here.
The only question is, is there an apex predator out there now or in the future ready to take Bitcoin down? Antlers, after all, look mighty fine on your wall as a hunting trophy.
Maybe swarms of AI killer drones attack and destroy every Bitcoin mining rig on the planet. We'll see. Maybe self-aware AI killer swarms study Bitcoin, fall in love with the protocol, and choose to use it instead.
But the most likely outcome seems to be not a direct attack on existing military conflicts but rather the indirect attack of killing belief in fiat and slowly starving warfighting countries. If enough people stop believing in fiat and start believing in Bitcoin, then the fiat becomes worthless, and there is no more money to fight bullshit wars.
Then maybe we do end up in antler-like mutually-assured preservation, Moore’s Law for the energy grid kicks in and we finally figure out fusion.
Goodbye and Hello
This love letter has not turned out as seductive as I might have hoped, Major Lowery. But then, perhaps you are the one who unintentionally seduced me ;-)
But I offer you this. I myself am an extremely talented and experienced defender on the cyber domain, and yet I refuse to work for the US government or any private industry that is essentially a private sector arm of the US military.
Why? Because I refuse to defend the indefensible.
Over and over I've had national security people offer the argument "we Five Eyes are just a teensy weensy bit less totalitarian than Russia and China, and hey we speak English".
If you believe, as I think you do, that the US government today engages in cyber tyranny against its citizens, why on earth would you voluntarily pick up a weapon to kill people in defense of that cyber tyranny?
Why would you defend the indefensible?
That is what I don't understand, my friend (if you will forgive me for calling you so, I feel like I learned a great deal about who you are from your thesis.)
You are self-contradictory. Maybe we all are, but yours is as follows:
Abstract power is bullshit, and only raw power in the form of watts is real and not bullshit. Yet your risk your life to kill people in defense of bullshit abstract power, and seem to think that advising policymakers’ staffers to change laws is somehow going to do a damn thing to change the situation.
huh?
I refuse to defend the indefensible, Major Lowery.
Why don’t you?
Love,
jmp