Jul 11 2011

How do we harness the growing power of hackers?

 

Computer hacking seems to dominate the news, the latest incident perpetrated by British journalists, which led to the shutdown of the News of the World tabloid.

On the other side of the coin, the Fox news Twitter account got hacked, which led to posts about the death of the president.

Financial institutions have become frequent targets and government fights a constant battle against hackers. Even the mighty Google, with its host of cyber-security experts, fell prey to hackers in China. And computer wizards who take on social agendas have led to a new word for dictionaries: “Hacktavists.”

All this got me to thinking about a speaker who came to Western Kentucky University in April to talk about the value of nuclear deterrence as policy — as opposed to disarmament — and his premise that when it comes to computers and personal safety, we have less to fear from government than we do from individuals. He linked these two by reminding the audience about the cyber attack launched on the Iranian computer system that controlled its nuclear development facilities.

What if terrorists gave up on trying to build dirty bombs and concentrated on taking over a computer to launch a nuclear weapon?

The American Movie Channel featured the film “Fail-Safe” on Saturday. In a scene near the end of the film, Henry Fonda as “The President” says to a Soviet leader during a telephone conversation: “We're to blame, both of us. We let our machines get out of hand.”

But I am not sure people give much thought to the disastrous potential for hacking beyond personal computer viruses and identity theft.

The iCitizenForum site recently offered visitors the chance to respond to Google’s Chinese hacking incident. One anonymous commenter wrote this: “Cyber is only used in the media when trying to gin up unreasoned fear. I can't think of another use of the word in daily life. We talk about our computers, at home or in business, without ever using the word cyber. But the media and the government use it often in ways that are meant to frighten us. The media makes money from our attention. The government agency gets increased funding from our fear. These are not ‘attacks,’ they are pranks.”

And even a commenter who disagreed, placed hacking back into the context of personal use not worldwide threats: “I disagree that these are pranks. A prank doesn't invade personal and business privacy and compromise personal data. Maybe it's just me, but if my e-mail account is hacked, it's a security issue — cyber or not.”

The speaker who came to WKU asked the audience to consider more government intervention and regulation of the Web as a way to protect us all from “rogue” cyber villains.

I am always skeptical when it comes to more trust in government and government regulation.

But perhaps it’s time to reconsider that.

What do you think?

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