We learn as much from victory as we do from loss. We employ strategies to gain the advantage, unconventional methods to overwhelm adversaries. One dedicated force steeped in mystique has always been part of war. Special operations, elite and unseen. Their presence felt by lethal attack. From the biblical era to the future of warfare, the battle environment is reshaped and redefined by special operations. Special Operations soldiers have come out of the trenches and are entering new domains of warfare.

The way that wars are fought is constantly evolving. In the warfare of today and the future, it's the push of a button rather than the pull of a trigger, bringing disorder without a single soldier setting foot on the ground. The real-world battlefield has morphed from the bloody trenches of the front line into an age of cyber warfare. From collapsing all the infrastructure of a country to changing minds for elections, any threat you can imagine can be done.

Jacob Ward travels the globe to investigate Decision Science. We imagine our conscious minds make most decisions but in reality we go through much of our lives on 'Autopilot'. And marketers and social media companies rely on it.
The first part offers you the owner’s manual for this autopilot. The second part, 'Weapons of Influence', explores how politicians, social media companies and corporate marketers use big data to hack decision-making system. The third part, 'Us vs. Them', shows how this autopilot biases fuel the nation's divisions and how to overcome them. The last part, 'The Wings of Angels', explores why hacking for good is an important scientific discovery; how people can hack their own minds to improve their lives and change the world for the better.

The global cyberwar is heating up and the stakes are no longer limited to the virtual world of computers. Now, thanks in part to secret documents released by Edward Snowden, the true scale of the National Security Agency's scope and power is coming to light. Besides spending billions of dollars to ingest and analyze the worlds' electronic communications, the NSA has set out to dominate a new battlefield—cyberspace. We examine the science and technology behind cyber warfare and asks if we are already in the midst of a deadly new arms race". Already, highly sophisticated, stealthy computer programs such as the notorious Stuxnet worm can take over and even destroy the control systems that regulate everything from food factories to gas pipelines, power plants, and chemical facilities—even our cars. While the destruction of Iranian centrifuges may have delayed Iran’s bomb program and forestalled an Israeli attack, the attack has opened a Pandora's Box, and now America's own critical infrastructure is vulnerable to retaliation and attack. With leading defense experts and investigative journalists who have probed the murky realm of criminal and strategic hacking, NOVA examines the chilling new reality of cyberwar in which no nation or individual is safe from attack.

The Internet is an uncontrollable labyrinth of content and imagery that operates under loose laws and partial anonymity - a new frontier where people can do anything and see anything, whether they should or not. In this lawless landscape, who's in control? The protectors? The abusers? In this episode meet the content moderators who watch the worst of the Internet so you don't have to; a convicted hacker whose punishment was the virtual prison of the unplugged; plus, a blackhat hacker who encrypts and holds computer files hostage.

With a little imagination, could a few terrorists sabotage a mighty nation? Perhaps even tear down modern civilization? The stability of the US, Europe, China, or any global power depends on high-speed digital communication. Our increasing dependence on digital devices and global interactivity may be placing us in grave danger. Scientists around the world are dealing with new threats such as body hacking, Trojan horse viruses, and brain-damaging Internet addiction. But what if the ultimate threat isn’t an attack on technology, but the technology? Could the final superpower be the disembodied mind of the Internet itself?