Sunday, June 10, 2007

The Digital Delusion

Recent events in Estonia are a cause for global concern. Estonia is among the most hardwired countries.One may call it as a cybernation.The pun here is very much intended.Cybernation also refers to a process where everything is controlled by computers.

Many important computer systems were knocked down apparently by Russians.(Russia denies this).What happened is called DDOS-an acronym for Distributed Denial of Service.There was a simultaneous avalanche of mails to many critical email ids.The cyber system could not cope with the Black Swan traffic and broke down.

If the omnipresent terrorists take to this cyber crime, the worst form of terrorism namely cyber-terrorism will be unleashed in the digital world.More than half the world is virtual and any disruption here will be disastrous. Cyber-jihadis will paralyse the entire world taking us back to pre-1950s.Not a welcome prospect!

Yesterday, computer systems in New York airports were affected leading to delays in air schedules.

This digital fragility enjoins us to go soft on hard copies: Let us preserve hard copies.

I tend to expand DDOS as Digitals Die,Others Survive.