Berlin researchers worry that hackers copy complete factories
[P]rofessional hacker and data security consultant Felix “FX” Lindner and Sandro Gaycken [..] talk about [security] risks to the auto industry. Some of their biggest concerns: the security of digital product information, construction plans and factory operating instructions [..] This [kind of hacking] doesn’t simply involve infecting as many computers as possible, but rather tapping into key know-how in selected systems digitally. Most companies do not even realize that they have been hacked. The data in question are not suddenly missing. They are just copied [..].
We know from the intelligence services that that it is not just digital product information that is at risk. It is increasingly construction plans and operating instructions for entire factories – all the way to the last screw and the associated organizational structure. If the information on “fine-tuning” gets into the wrong hands, the technological edge of a high-technology center [..] can quickly be lost. While the construction of complex manufacturing facilities formerly took up to five years, now they can be built in three to four months. Whatever can be copied is in fact copied.
I am shocked frequently to see another major event such as this, again fitting snugly into 3rd Wave model. The last phase of production going completely digital is of course 3D printing, but even now, building factories, or factories that build factories, are mainly digital beasts. Construction phases are shortening, more important work is now design. That is digital, and what is digital can be copied.
Some guesswork: I am sure such construction, planning software help optimizing internal structure of the construction, to the extent that no human by himself ever could. We already optimize schedules, inventories, routes, etc (using linear programming, thanks to a great mathematician Dantzig -whose algorithm helped optimize the Berlin Airlift-), it is not a big leap to let similar algorithms loose on construction plans.
On copying: I’d argue, perhaps characteristically, to “let the knowledge go”. It is “going” to unwanted places already, maybe it will help if it goes to some wanted ones (such as Africa). Businesses should not compete on hoarding information, they should compete on creating new ones. Compete on service. Compete on being able to customize it faster, better than anyone.