As an entrepreneur on the Internet you are immersed in a competitive world. But to assure that you may be able to stay in business on the Net in the long run you must be part of a cooperative world. If not, your business may be destroyed by the mounting cyberterrorism.
One of the loyal readers of LearningFOUNT, Roger Greenaway, has referred me to the opening of a new think tank, Oxford Internet Institute. The think tank plans to study (see http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/archive/0001/13_3/07.shtml) the 4 deficits:
- THE DEMOCRACY DEFICIT - The non-accountability of operators to the public
- THE EXPERTISE DEFICIT - The gap in technical capabilities between public and private sectors
- THE AGILITY DEFICIT - The lag between technical advance and the public policy response
- THE SOVEREIGNTY DEFICIT - The conflicts between nation-states and global interests
All 4 deficits are urgently in need of correction. But I believe the toughest and most important deficit is the sovereignty deficit. It is this deficit, more than anything else, that leaves us vulnerable and wide-open to cyberterrorism.
Each nation has jurisdiction only in the geographical area it exists. On the Net, any person, hate group, or terrorist cell can establish a site anywhere on the Globe and escape a nation's jurisdiction. Increasingly we are all pawns in the hands of those who want to harm us.
Cyberterrorists have many ways to hurt us:
- SPAM - Between 1/4 and 1/3 of the total email volume is spam. Most of this is sent by unethical people. But terrorists could use spam to disrupt the activities of businesses and government agencies
- FRAUD - Every day I hear of another fraudulent activity. Fraud, too, may be used by terrorists to destabilize our economic system
- HATE & MISINFORMATION - They can turn one group against another and cause many conflicts
- PRIVACY - Not only can they use our intellectual products without payment, they may be able to tamper with them and thereby ruin the reputation of our corporations
- VIRUSES - These can ruin data bases and processes that are the lifeblood of a company or government agency
- ATTACKS - They can effectively knock a website off the air. This has been done several times before
How do we solve this situation? We must address 2 problems:
- Some Global businesses have more power than some nation-states
- Different nation-states have sovereignty over different geographical areas
There is no way to solve the first problem except through cooperation. Highly competitive businesses must cooperate with each other in order to thwart terrorist activity on the Net. Businesses must cooperate with various governments as well.
There is no way to solve the second and tougher problem except through cooperation. Nation-states need to work closely together to stop cyberterrorism.
To fight cyberterrorism, we must all join together to bring about a cooperative world. Eventually, only a world government will be able to do the job.
