Why there may be no escaping the cyber war
The cyber war has begun. Sony has been repeatedly punched in the face by hackers and now President Barack Obama says any more attempts to pry into the emails of his staff will be treated as an act of military aggression. (At this stage it’s probably best to ignore the fact that the US’ track record of declaring war on intangible things – terror, drugs – have, with the best will in the world, met with limited success.)
The number one fear is that hackers could hit financial markets or transport and power hubs, reducing us to cowering animals, gathering around a bonfire in the silent, deserted wastelands of our former cities.
And we don’t have long. According to one doom-mongering report, experts suspect Chinese hackers are capable of “reducing Britain to stone-age conditions at the press of a button”. Stone age. At the press of a button. Now foreign intelligence agencies can not only peer into your Gmail account but destroy your metal tools, judicial system and knowledge of geometry.
With technological foes so immeasurably superior, there is no point running. All is lost. It’s time to bid a tearful farewell to your iPad and throw yourself under a train before the entire rail network comes screeching to a final, deathly stand-still.
Right now, somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon, a team of scientists is probably crafting an army of virtual warriors to beam through cyber space, draped in virtual stars and stripes, to fight the final battle with our invisible enemies. None of which is good news for tech geeks. Anyone with a smartphone will soon be viewed with suspicion and those with a laptop will be shot on sight, through the eye, just for fun. My days of reviewing anything more high-tech than a coffee machine will be long gone. Next week I’m featuring the latest edition of the iAbacus (with new easy-to-slide beads).
Or, on the other hand, perhaps the threat of a cyber attack – real and worrying as it is – has just been blown out of all proportion.