I've been reading an interminable discussion over at El Reg on cyber-terrorism.
Now, there only seem to be two really significant threats:
The first threat is fairly easily contained. Such systems tend to be bespoke, complex and relatively simple to secure using well-known techniques. Thus they are amenable to only localized attack. Serious as that is, it won't end civilization as we know it.
The second threat can be contained too. Separation of applications was achieved in mainframes and Unix in the 1970s. Journalization of changes and the ability to replay changes was a solved problem when I was still working out how walk and talk. The only missing piece is for Bill Gates's minions to pull their fingers out and implement an operating system where the OS and applications are safe from stomping on each other; each piece of data has a responsible application (which we have today with default handlers); any application can read data; but applications that don't own the data need the permission of the user or controlling application to make updates; and any updates can be reversed ('cos storage is cheap cheap cheap, and we can store a lot of changes in our undo buffer.)
Hey! Sounds like an Oracle database...
The always-on hyper-connected world isn't going to result in a cataclysm. It's a telepocalypse for the voice carriers, not a telegeddon for the public.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 10:25 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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