Social Radars: Finding Targets in Cyberspace for Cybersecurity

Inspired by the insight from American political scientist Lasswell, who summarized the environmental role in societal surveillance [1], Schramm coined the term “social radar” [2] as it resembles the activities of radar in collecting and processing information, playing a crucial role in helping humans perceive changes in the internal and external environment and promptly adjusting adaptive behaviors. Against the backdrop of cyberspace security becoming a global focus, the development of globalization in information and intelligence calls for in-depth research into social radar. This can help us better understand and respond to complex societal dynamics more intelligently and sensitively. Social radar, as the capability to keenly observe and interpret this information, aids in a better understanding of societal trends, cultural evolution, and interpersonal interactions. This sensitivity is crucial for timely grasping societal changes and predicting trends. In the 2010 “Arab Spring” event, social media played a crucial role in driving the movement, resulting in widespread violent conflicts that had significant impacts on both society and the economy [3]. This event re-introduced social radar as a service platform based on social networks and social media. It aims to employ keyword expansion detection modules and sentiment analysis tools to summarize specific social dashboards in Fig. 1. The generated results assist authorities in planning “risk control strategies,” issuing alerts to businesses or governments, and monitoring unexpected occurrences [4]. The research on social radar provides robust support for us to better adapt to and lead technological changes, enabling us to keenly perceive the pulse of societal development and make wiser decisions.