Monday, March 1, 2010

Google and the intruders in the China shop

Web security is too important to be left to Web firms -- or so thinks Google | IslamOnline.net

Back in the day when computers were just computers, rogue code was regarded as a form of vandalism -- denounced, but largely tolerated. Yet as computers became the networks that underlie the operations of everything, from banks and power grids to obsessive real-time social-networking, vandalism is no longer an apt description of acts that disturb networks. That is now called cybercrime. And it’s far from the exclusive domain of law enforcement authorities. Increasingly it’s the business of diplomats and heads of states.

In a recent speech by the United States’ chief diplomat, Hillary Clinton said: “States, terrorists and those who would act as their proxies must know that the United States will protect our networks.” The country’s force, in other words, could be deployed to protect the network if need be.