Cyberattacks and What They Would Do to Us

"The Internet's benefits are relatively modest compared with previous transformative technologies, and it brings with it a terrifying danger: cyberwar," writes Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post.

By cyberwarfare, I mean the capacity of groups -- whether nations or not -- to attack, disrupt and possibly destroy the institutions and networks that underpin everyday life. These would be power grids, pipelines, communication and financial systems, business record-keeping and supply-chain operations, railroads and airlines, databases of all types (from hospitals to government agencies). The list runs on. So much depends on the Internet that its vulnerability to sabotage invites doomsday visions of the breakdown of order and trust.

In a report, the Defense Science Board, an advisory group to the Pentagon, acknowledged "staggering losses" of information involving weapons design and combat methods to hackers (not identified, but probably Chinese). In the future, hackers might disarm military units. "U.S. guns, missiles and bombs may not fire, or may be directed against our own troops," the report said. It also painted a specter of social chaos from a full-scale cyberassault. There would be "no electricity, money, communications, TV, radio or fuel (electrically pumped). In a short time, food and medicine distribution systems would be ineffective."

If that isn't enough to stress you, Samuelson raises other "new avenues for conflict and mayhem" made easy by the Internet, including larceny and business espionage.

"The Internet's virtues are overstated, it's vices understated," concludes Samuelson. It's a mixed blessing—and the mix may be moving against us."