Gagik Harutyunyan G.Harutyunyan – the Director of “Noravank” Foundation (The report presented at “Dialogue of Civilizations” world public forum, Rhodes Forum, the 8th annual session, October 7-11, 2010, Rhodes (Greece)) Internet, which was initially created for the communication of the professionals, has become available to billions in just several decades (and according to other criteria of counting in incomplete 20 years), and there have been social structures of different load created in it. All this is another phase of permanent information revolution with all the ensuing consequences of positive and negative character. It should also be stated that the Internet, especially with the implanted social networks and blogosphere, is already a passive information-communicative, social-psychological and business-service phenomenon. It is goes beyond our monitors and turns into real and very important social and military-political factor. We are of the opinion that the global web has become an integral part of our environment and that is why it not very correct to make unambiguous appraisal of one or another phenomenon on the Internet. The researchers should broaden their ideas about that phenomenon and try to examine the mechanisms of its dynamics. This, to some extent, will allow to promote desirable tendencies or to resist not quite desirable ones in the aspect of the protection of the interests of the society. In this article we will try to present the Internet (in a complex with the social network community and blogosphere) as a new, virtual but effective form of democracy, which in social plane comes into conflict with the realities of modern democracy which, in its turn, is neatly defined by the term of “post-democracy”. At the same time we will also scrutinize the role of the Internet and social networks in the terms of national security, because this complex is a powerful weapon in modern information net-centric wars and geopolitical confrontation in general. Social networks on the Internet. It is known that social networks and blogs are the most thriving segment of the Internet. According to some estimation today 70% of the Internet users visit those structures. According to Nielsen Company data, time spent by the users in social networks in 2009 has grown to 82% as compared to 2008. The growth of the traffic of the social networks is impressive: in 2007 it was 210 million, in 2008 – 242 million, and in December 2009 more than 307 million users visited social networks. Facebook is still a world leader among the social networks – the number of its users in 2009 exceeded 206 million people (67% of the social networks’ users in the world). But in 2010 this number has increased, as it can be seen in Pic.1, up to 520 million, and the 50 million augmentations were registered in the 3 summer months of this year1, and capitalization of the company has grown by third (now it constitutes about $34 billion) and thus outstripped Google. Pic.1 Appearance of these new forms – social networks and blogosphere – turned the Internet from useful but passive tool of acquiring information into interactive informational social environment which not only brings to locating and isolation from real life but also tends to get into interaction, sometimes very impetuous, with the environment. In this context it is interesting to define what kind of environment it is in present. Democracy: real and virtual. English sociologist Colin Crouch in his recently published in Russian “Post-Democracy” work, following the tendency of post-modernism, defines current age as “post-democratic” [1]. In this system politicians are withdrawn into their own environment and communicate with the society through the PR which is stuffed with the manipulative technologies. At the same time all the formal democracy attributes are preserved: elections, separation of powers and etc, but in post-democratic society, everything is decided and done by the symbiotic political and financial elite and the later dominates. It is characteristic that some commentators nicknamed such a formation as “new totalitarianism”. Skepticism towards the adequacy of the current democratic societies to classical definitions of democracy was aroused by different researchers (we, e.g. sometimes used term quasi-democracy). But it looks as if Crouch not only found an appropriate term but also grounded it from the scientific point of view. In particular, he considers that modern ideas of democracy imply “limited possibilities of the government under the unlimited economy” and reduce the democratic component to running elections which, in its turn, can be considered elections as a stretch. Under such conditions “the government turns into a kind of institutional idiot” which is constantly blamed in being unable to arrange efficient policy, thus ascribing that capability to “private business”. Let us mention that such a situation, in its essence, levels the so-called countries with the “developed” democracy to those where the democratic institutions in their modern interpretation have rather short history. Unlike post-democratic realities in virtual world where there are no clearly defined hierarchical structures of managing and a certain anonymity of the citizens is preserved, classical, proto-democratic habits, like those which were in antique Athens, predominate (but this only to a certain extent). Meanwhile, the “citizens of virtual democratic society” with all their known and unknown peculiarities are derivatives from the real world and that is why a certain interaction or even conflict between virtual and real societies is inevitable. This is especially characteristic for those net structures which are formed in accordance with their interests. As well as we know the first such a conflict with an indictment in Russia (for the statements made in blog about militia) took place in 2008, but today such conflicts are quite common thing [2]. We think there is no necessity to go into details of “Khimki case” in Moscow or real participation in fire suppression in Russia through Пожар_ру social network. Something similar took place in Yerevan when a lot of signatures against the demolition of the cinema, which is of architectural value, and against the reforms in the sphere of education were collected in the blogosphere with the further shift of that process to Facebook which made the authorities change or edit their initial decisions. There are many exanples of consolidation and «materialization” of “virtual citizens” for the actions of protest in real world, and it should be mentioned that here we do not consider the manifestations of “ecological” terrorism. Our sociological estimates concerning Armenia come to prove that in this aspect, organizations dealing with environmental protection and protection of the cultural heritage are the most efficient which, as a rule, is welcomed by the “real society”. In this aspect the actions of the network communities can be presented as a kind of mechanism to compensate the deficit of the democracy under the “post-democracy”. Such actions of the social networks, in fact, consolidate the shaken democratic institutions. This may seem strange but opposing the authorities, the social networks, in a manner, strengthen the institutions of the “nation state” under the “post-democracy” in its relations with the national capital (if, of course, the authorities has a wish and a will to do it). At the same time the virtual communities are dealing not only with the issues of culture and ecology. Quite recently both the real and virtual communities were agitated by the action of WikiLeaks resource which is “situated” in the Island “information off-shore” – there were about 75 thousand secret Pentagon documents concerning military campaign in Afghanistan placed on its web-site. It is known that after that persecutions in different countries were initiated: in different countries, at the unconcealed instigation of the ministry of defence of the US and most probably on farfetched charges arrest warrants were issued and employees of WikiLeaks were summoned for questioning. Let us mention that the movement against war in Vietnam could hardly draw a small part of the audience and so many anti-war arguments against the American government as WikiLeaks did. It is known that despite the unpopularity of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and in Iraq it still continues despite the declared end), in general the real world reacts to those processes rather inertly. There are many reasons for that but they are mostly in the plane of “post-democracy” with the artificial manipulations of the society (global and total propaganda which is possible under the symbiosis of mass media, power and oligarchy, big financial compensations to the families of the deceased and etc) [3]. At the same time, and this may sound a little strange, most probably the manipulative nature of most of the modern mass media, including virtual, allows some analytics to suggest a version that the actions of WikiLeaks are a part of large-scale and well-planned information operation. Thus, the publication of the secret documents, in the interpretation of the present authorities, does not contradict to the national interests of the US which aspire to get rid of at least a part of the neo-conservative heritage of G. Bush. Meanwhile, such a statement of question brings up to date the topic of the social networks and blogosphere in the terms of the information war and information security. Network structures and net-centric wars in the context of the issues of information security. The fact that the formation of the conceptual bases of information wars (IW) and information operation (IO) in early 90s of the last century coincided, or most probably, was conditioned by emerging of the Internet does not demand any comment. The theory and practice of IW and IO, as well as the Internet in general, develop rather actively. In the 90s of the last century the experts of RAND elaborated concepts of “information wars” (IW) and “net-centric wars” (NW) [4]. The notion of “net” intends the refusal from “center - periphery” method of hierarchical management and formation of the system which has no distinct structure, i.e. unstructured system, which is subordinated to the logic of self-development and non-linear processes. In such a system formally there is no “center”, but each of the links included in the system may undertake the functions of the managing “center”. The concept of the IW is based on the ideas, according to which the strength of the state firstly depends on the possibility to be informed, to obtain information and to react adequately. The purpose of the IW is “to assure or to compel target audience to taking decisions boosting promotion of their own national interests” and the task of the IW is interpreted by some analytics as “implantation of its cultural code in the society of the conventional friend or competitor”. But, let us mention, that the INW are a tool which can not be used by everyone, because for the efficient usage the following conditions are necessary: ·availability of the system with the highly intellectual resources and attractive ideological environment, which components may be fully informed and react quickly and adequately to the information obtained; ·Acknowledgement of the military situation (in wide extent and not meaning exclusively state of war) and appropriate mobilizational style of work and actions [5]. New concepts attracted attention of the political and military strategists. Very soon IW and INW became one of the cornerstones of the modern foreign and military policy of the US and other leading states. In this aspect it is not difficult to notice that virtual social networks in many of their manifestations may serve as a tool for conducting IW and INW. This can be observed in peacetime when virtual social networks carry out, e.g. informational and organizational coverage of the “colour revolutions” (as it happened recently in Iran). Social networks also play important role during the military actions, e.g. during the Israeli-Palestine or Armenian-Azerbaijani military confrontations. Thus, social networks are a tool of the IW and in order to discuss them the terminology of information security is necessary (IS) in which technical and content segments are distinguished. Priority task for the IS is the provision of the security of the so-called “critical infrastructures” – systems of management, energy and water provision, communication and information, financial and other systems. It seems that the social networks should also be included in that list. In particular, according to Ponemon Institute, about 65% of the participants of the inquiry – the users of the social web-sites – do not adjust privacy and security settings, 90% register in the network without getting acquainted with its privacy policy and 40% mention their real home address during the registration and the same percentage do not keep their password in secret. Naturally, under such conditions crime in the social networks prospers just like in Chicago in the times of gangsters. Let us also mention that the data bases of the social networks are of special interest not only for the criminal structures but also for the special services which have more or less self-respect. Not to mention that the figure of the administrator is rather problematic and he gradually acquires the status of Orwell’s “Big Brother”. The provision of the protection of content segment, in which the level of the IS is mostly conditioned by the capability to protect the basic values, as we can see, is much more difficult. It is especially important in the context of the NW principle – “implantation of its own cultural code in the society of conventional friend or competitor”. As a method of protection, by the analogy with definitions accepted in the technical segment of IS, as we understand, the “critical infrastructures” of the content which are not always obvious should be established. In practice it means that the theses which distortion may cause national demoralization and degradation must be chosen from the system of national values and become a subject of special attention and protection. Possible scenarios and comments. Recently many forecasts concerning the development of the Internet appeared and this regards to both technical and social spheres. In particular, Cisco and Monitor Group experts believe that in the nearest 15 years to come the Internet audience will grow mainly at the cost of people from the developing countries and the borders of the Internet will be diffused2. In this case the users from all over the world may get an access to the Web from great variety of the available facilities and the Internet will become a center for rendering of services. At the same time the Internet will turn into non-secure network because of the increasing number of the cyber-attacks and, as a consequence, its secure analogues may appear, the access to which will be rather expensive. In this aspect it is curious that in the US the possibility of delivering military strike in response to the cyber-attacks3 is not excluded, i.e. the actions in the Internet may serve casus belli, and the initiated wars may cause real and total destruction of both real and virtual worlds. According to the forecasts of the Swedish researchers the development of the Internet will result in the formation of the intellectual net elite which will manage real globalized society [6]. Meanwhile, intellectual level of the modern social networks not always inspires optimism and this not only regards to the mass passion for different games which causes a kind of infantilization of the net community [see, e.g. 7]. Alongside with the term easy music, the term easy information, which is presented in rather simplified, “globalized” language4, can be brought into circulation [8]. A kind of synergism is peculiar to that easy information, because it, unlike professional, difficult information, possess some super-fluidity5 and resonates easily with the ones of its own kind, branch out and finally we have synergetic and not always consoling effect. Some conclusions. It can be stated that today intensive interaction between real and informational and virtual worlds is taking place. The border between them becomes conventional and the notion “virtual” losses it initial meaning. This is promoted by the rapid development of the social networks and blogosphere on the Internet and this process contains in itself both great possibilities and serious risks among which the following can be mentioned: Social networks and blogosphere on the Internet are capable at least to pull up processes of de-democratization which are characteristic of modern post-democratic societies. In some cases, in the context of tendencies of domination of the national capital on both state and global levels, the actions of such structures may be directed to the protection of the “nation state” and the civilizational values of the society. Thus, under a certain scenarios of the development the internet structures can turn into global democratic institutions. Social networks and blogosphere on the Internet are tools to conduct informational and net-centric wars, i.e. to some extent those structures are some kind of weapon of mass destruction, possessing which increases the temptation to carry out policy of expansion. In this context it is obvious that the internet structures and their actions should be studied and esteemed in terms of information security with the usage of methods of detection and protection of critical infrastructures of technical and content segments. 1 http://www.facebakers.com/countries-with-facebook/ 2 http://lenta.ru/news/2010/08/26/future/. 3 Зарубежное военное обозрение, #6, с. 96, 2010. 4 McCrum Robert, Globish, London/New York City.: Viking/Norton, 2010. 5 Самвел Мартиросян, Сверхтекучесть информации в социальных сетях, http://www.noravank.am/rus/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=4810&sphrase_id=1076 Sources and literature 1.Крауч К., Постдемократия. М.: Гос.ун-т, Высшая школа экономики, 2010. 2.Таратуга Ю., Зыгарь М., Вы у нас еще попишите. Русский Newsweek, #18-19, (287), с. 13, 2010. 3.Арутюнян Г., О некоторых задачах стратегии США в контексте Иракской проблемы. «21 Век», #3(5), с.105, 2004 (на арм. языке); Арутюнян Г., Переходное состояние: геоидеологический фактор в глобальных развитиях. «21-й Век», #2, с. 3, 2005. 4.Гриняев С., Поле битвы – киберпространство. Мн.: Харвест, 2004. 5.Арутюнян Г., Проблемы информационной безопасности и цивилизационный фактор // кн. «О некоторых проблемах информационной безопасности». НОФ «Нораванк», Ереван, 2009, с. 5. 6.Берд А., Зондерквист Я., Netokratia. Новая правящая элита и жизнь после капитализма. Стокгольмская школа экономики, СПб, 2005. 7.Павловский Г., Интернет есть, счастья нет. Эксперт, # 30-31,(715), с. 15, 2010. 8.McCrum R., Globish. London/New York City.: Viking/Norton, 2010.

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