The New Cold War

I have a concern. Perhaps what concerns me greater still is no one else in the media seems to share my concern. I think we're on the verge of a new cold war. But this time, things will be different. This cold war is a financial cold war. Specifically speaking, I'm afraid of cold war with North Korea. And not because it's been covered in CNN, Newsweek, the BBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, or any other media organization. This concern stems from an unlikely place: Slashdot.org. Slashdot, for those of you who are unaware, is a forum that people can post News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. What has concerned me recently is North Korea's hacker college, and recent discovery of vulnerabililties in Australian network security. The original article, found here, sparked the idea in me that we do have a vulnerability and weakness in this nation that can't be addressed on a physical realm. So long as the internet exists (and thank God it does!), we forever have cut down a wall and placed a door for our enemies to walk in and take whatever they want. Fortunately, we have locks for doors, and some of them are stronger than others. But, locks can be picked.. especially over time... And the lock pickers are getting better and better about picking the locks. While our own government employs 50 times the number of lock pickers, it's entirely conceivable that the N. Korean government will eventually catch up with our ability. So, with a whole new ballgame of international espionage on the horizon, could American businesses with a much smaller security budget that our government become targets for North Korea to steal industry and trade secrets to beat us to the punch at creating products we develop? The simple answer is, yes... it could. Such a scenario could cause havoc, especially for small and medium sized businesses in this country. Competition with Asia is becoming more and more intense, and with the ability to lie, cheat, steal, and manipulate to get the job done cheaper, faster, and more efficiently, it could make a mortal economic enemy the likes which make even Japan shudder. With this influx of computer viruses, and daily security updates to Windows, and battles with spyware, malicious software is becoming a greater threat to our economic well being. Sadly, in the interests to protect itself from piracy, Microsoft doesn't make it's security patches available for bootleg versions of it's operating systems: a fact that has lead to over 50% of the worlds spam being spawned from unpatched Windows machines in China. With frivilous lawsuits going on every day in the US over software patent rights to the tune of multibillion dollar settlements, we've taken our eye off the ball in preventing what really matters to protect our economic future: internet security. And the longer we ignore the growing threat in the East, the greater the chance of a new cold war, an economical cold war, looms on the horizon. Oracle was right in stating The Internet Changes Everything. The rules have changed. And we need to be equipped to play the new game.

On a less serious note, I'm quite upset that I missed the 3rd and final debate last night. I had it set to record, digitally, however it never started. I did, however, catch the last two minutes of it, just in time to see the closing debates, and the muted screaming between Bush and Kerry when the debate was over... I wonder what they were all upset about. Anyhow, I had a pleasant evening last night, catching up on the last three Smallville episodes while snuggling in bed. My drive into work was a bit gloomy, but man have the fall colors come out. It's beautiful! :-)

My horoscope today seems particularly appropriate, given the above theory. Mysteries, conspiracy theories and intense conversations will keep you quite busy -- and quite deeply involved with a certain person you've been wondering about. Try to stay objective.

Anyhow, I don't feel much like writing a book today, so I think I'll end it here. For now, peace to everyone. 19 days and counting. VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE!! :-)

Peace.