Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.”
These lines have been quoted by John Perry Barlow, in A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.
Now how far did this independence affect the cyber world? It was affected to the point where the question arises are we safe? What kind of independence in this? where anyone can invade anyone’s privacy? But in every world there exist the good, the bad and the ugly.
How ugly they can get. Everyone knows but no one can measure.
Who they are? They are simple human beings like us. Not exactly like us but more intelligent, sharp and quick. Their world has given them a new name the ‘cyber criminals’. But are they really the bad guys.
Yes they Are, No They Are Not.
Confused?
How can a criminal be a criminal and still be a GEEK? Or how can a GEEK be a criminal?
My experience so far and the cases I have come across have proved that criminals are criminals, and geeks are geeks. When they fail to realize the borderline between black and white and cross legal and social boundaries that is when things take a new turn and a new direction.
But is this the only world in which we dwell? There are many out there who have been directly or indirectly affected by the geeky or techy terrorism.We have very conveniently secured our world through expensive security alarms and security officials with guns and rifles in their hands 24/7.
“… Cyberspace is real. And so are the risks that come with it.”
President Barack Obama, 29 May 2009
The creation of cyberspace has brought us to a vulnerable point where we are not safe even if we think we are. With satellite filtering images and spotting terrorists criminals have gone completely underground. Or should I say invisible? Let me put it in a more appropriate manner “virtual”.
These virtual beings then attack virtually. Hacking is not a child’s play neither is spamming. These require expertise and extensive skills. In the real world you can find, trace and stalk and punish the criminals. But whatever is virtual is invisible; you cannot stalk the stalkers, cannot find them and cannot stop them. They might be present anywhere and everywhere in the world.
That is what makes them the GEEKS. as quoted above it is the mind’s game “Cyberspace, the new home of Mind”. You have to be ready with a plan every passing minute.
‘Terrorist Geeks aim at‘
The aim of these geeks varies from criminal to criminal or should I say geek to geek. Some indulge in these activities just for the sake of fun. Others, only to sharpen their skills, and still others for revenge. These are the most wanted and the most dangerous, because once they establish their plan they never stop. The execution of these plans can ruin businesses and most importantly, lives.
Now how would you define such type of terrorism in which you have to be extremely intelligent, smart, and clever and an intellectual? And above all educated and equipped with the latest technologies.
If we have techies making softwares all the time, then there are those who have the ability of making anti-software plans as well.
Fraud, stalking, spamming these are just a few examples
Staying Private is ‘NOT AN OPTION’. Once you are on the cyber world you are in the open. Is there any way that we could remain on the internet and at the same time stay private? Well a few days back I reading Mark Zukkerberg quote ‘The Age of privacy is over’ made me realize, that it was over way before we realized it was.
And then privacy settings from Facebook disappeared. Leaving everyone visible to everyone else.
Solutions
Are there any solutions to these problems? Everybody would want to make sure that we have the cyber tools necessary to investigate cyber crimes and to be prepared to defend against them and to bring people to law who commit it. Are we considering this or are we not? Are we making plans for safeguarding ourselves from password ‘123456’ security breach?
We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before?
Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996
This world which exists beyond the real world is what we call the cyberspace. This is the world where we face unexplainable glitches all the time. It is loaded with risks. And cyber crimes cannot be stopped. One security breach and the rest is history. Many hope and discover ways of stopping and stemming the root cause of such thefts but the issue remains unstoppable.
All these assumptions and questions impact all of us. It is high time now that we should address these questions or else we will have to answer tougher questions. Because without solutions things can get uglier.
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