Encouraging Whistleblowing Among Generational Cybercriminals Facilitating Governmental Cyberespionage

Abstract

Cybercriminals supporting governmental intelligence and military espionage who are encouraged to become whistleblowers could singularly disrupt the global and geopolitical order.  This practitioner’s position paper suggests that encouraging cybercriminals to become whistleblowers by demonstrating real and imagined peer whistleblowing of corruption and abuse could provide some balance, as many nations become more transparent even when forced because they lack information on what negative or questionable information will be revealed.  There are changing generational norms suggesting that younger generations in different countries are more willing to vocalize allegations or evidence of fraud and corruption within their organizations, which is much more consistent with whistleblowing behaviors found in literature.  This exploratory practitioner’s position paper integrates research on the changing generational whistleblowing norms and models of shame and guilt influencing behavior in different cultures, proposing a conceptual behavioral paradigm and narrative model suggesting how cybercriminals could be motivated or encouraged to become whistleblowers.  We suggest that whistleblowing could continue to emerge as a naturalizing act that diffuses undemocratic and adversarial postures of international political and military decisionmakers.  This paper will visualize the application of this proposed narrative conceptual model to two theoretical scenarios where there is corruption and abuse uncovered in governmental cyberespionage.