Beware the Internet

frost_knight writes "Washington Post opinion writer Robert J. Samuelson writes 'If I could, I would repeal the Internet. It is the technological marvel of the age, but it is not — as most people imagine — a symbol of progress. Just the opposite. We would be better off without it.' It is his belief that the dangers of the Internet outweigh its benefits." The reason? Cyberwarfare of course.

Uh, duh?

[wonkey_monkey]

By cyberwarfare, I mean the capacity of groups — whether nations or not — to attack, disrupt and possibly destroy the institutions and networks that underpin everyday life. These would be power grids, pipelines, communication and financial systems, business record-keeping and supply-chain operations, railroads and airlines

Hey, guess what? Ordinary warfare can disrupt and destroy those things as well. Guess we'd better "repeal" those, too.

a terrifying danger: cyberwar

I don't know about anyone else, but compared to actual war, I find cyberwar to be about as terrifying as getting up in the night to go to the toilet.

A New Era

[vikingpower]

My father grew up during the '30s, amidst nation-states all on an ineluctable course for war. Information was scarce, could take weeks before reaching citizens, and was always colored. Until he recently died, such was his mindset: nation-states, triumphing nationalism, shifting alliances, scarce and coloured information. And I remember, when growing up during the last 2 decades of the Cold War, that I sometimes went to bed realizing that nuclear war might and could break out overnight. That, in that case, I would either never wake up again: our family's home was close to a piece of infrastructure important for routing supplies to armies fighting in the Northwest-European plains, or otherwise might wake up as a radiation victim. The Cold War: information was not as scarce. We had newspapers, radio, television - but information was incomplete. We later learned that information on much of what happened behind the Iron Curtain had simply been suppressed to us, ordinary citizens, and that the same was true for the citizens "on the other side".

The Cold War passed, and exactly 12 years of prosperity, along with unbridled & blooming innovation, followed. Until 9/11/2001. We have, since, been sliding into what seems more and more to become as much of a status quo as the Cold War was: the Information War.

Many are struggling to adapt to the new mindset required to cope with this new paradigm, as German Federal Chancellor Merkel illustrated by likening the US eavesdropping and bugging practices to "Cold War practice". The Information War is taking up speed: information is nearly free-flowing over the internet - and at the stake of conflict itself.

I can imagine, hence, the confusion and revulsion of Samuelson, who must have somehow - like most of us did - settled for a world in a state of seemingly permanent Cold War. War has never, or hardly ever, been about infrastructure, and such Samuelson's text is far off the mark. War has always been about either assets or power, and the asset now at stake is: information. It must be hard, for people of Samuelson's generation, to get that into their heads, although they better do - lest they lose fundamental understanding of what our world has become, and is becoming ever faster: an always-shifting patchwork of information sinks and sources.

Terrible article

[Camael]

Let me explain.

First he admits the benefits the Internet brings :-

I grant its astonishing capabilities: the instant access to vast amounts of information, the pleasures of YouTube and iTunes, the convenience of GPS and much more.

Then he explains why he thinks the Internet is bad :-

But the Internet’s benefits are relatively modest compared with previous transformative technologies, and it brings with it a terrifying danger: cyberwar. By cyberwarfare, I mean the capacity of groups — whether nations or not — to attack, disrupt and possibly destroy the institutions and networks that underpin everyday life. These would be power grids, pipelines, communication and financial systems, business record-keeping and supply-chain operations, railroads and airlines, databases of all types (from hospitals to government agencies). The list runs on. So much depends on the Internet that its vulnerability to sabotage invites doomsday visions of the breakdown of order and trust.

Take note of his key objection - he fears that essential utilities/services would be easily disrupted because they are connected to the Internet.

Point 1- Easy solution, disconnect these essential utilities/services from the Internet!
Point 2- If these essential utilities/services cannot be disconnected from the Internet without some loss of function, they would not have been able to enjoy the same function if the Internet never existed.

I do not blame the writer for this article, he is primarily an economics reporter [washingtonpost.com]and appears to have been taken in by the fearmongering flogged by all those who have an agenda to promote cyberwarfare capabilities. I do however blame the Washington Post for allowing such drivel to be posted under their name. They should have known better.

Re:Washington Post

[Evtim]

Indeed! Best illustrated by the movie that opened the western audience to Akira Kurosawa - "Rashomon"

Check it out, it's worth it! The whole plot is people giving account to some events (even the dead one testifies via a medium) and at the end we see what really happened..

Re:The "good old days"..

[Danathar]

Actually, in the 80's you probably (unless you were at a MAJOR university) did not have access to the Internet as it was a pure research network, and even if you did it was text based only (for the post part). Most people (like myself) would of logged onto a BBS and posted to FidoNet. I can't remember but there probably was a FidoNet to Usenet gateway. Once you posted a message it took DAYS for it to propagate across the planet, and more days for a response to come back.

People don't realize how much more productive they are due to instant access to information.

In the 80's if I wanted to fix my washer machine (and I didn't know how) I could pay somebody, try to find a general purpose book at the library, etc.

Now I just type in the model number of the dryer and I can probably download the maintenance manual for the darn thing. On top of that there probably is a message board dedicated to people JUST TRYING TO FIX THEIR WASHER MACHINE.

Perspective can illuminate how much things have changed since then

Re:Washington Post

[wagnerrp]

We're not talking about individual people, we're talking about industries. Specifically, we're talking about a writer at the Washington Post lamenting the technology that will be the downfall of the printed newspaper. His industry is changing, and rather than adapt to the new medium, he's throwing up FUD that the new technology is dangerous, and should have never been invented.