I fear we may have created a monster

I'm one of the many many thousands of people who helped create the Internet as we know it today.  When I started working for Hewlett Packard in 1994, we were designing, building and selling equipment used for testing what was called back then "Broadband ISDN", specifically ATM ("Asynchronous Transfer Mode" not Automatic Teller Machine!).  This was for the core of the Internet, the fibre optic connections between telecommunication company exchanges, between telcos, and between countries.  Back then no-one had home broadband, but voice, dial-up, and broadband for business and government was already driving the need for more and more capacity in the core of the network. Home broadband technologies were in development around the world and would start to roll out later that decade.  In 2000 I would end up moving to England to be the global product manager for Lucent's first 3G Base Stations, and then back to Australia in 2003 to be a product manager for a small manufacturer of wireline broadband access network equipment.

In those heady days of the mid to late 1990's and into the 2000’s, we felt we were part of something very special and very exciting.  We were the people directly involved in realising a vision for a wonderful new world.  A world with ubiquitous high-speed internet available to every person, household and organisation.  In the future your average household would be able to buy goods over the Internet, do banking without having to physically walk into a bank, and book flights, trains, ferries, and events, with the tickets being posted out to your home!  Education and medicine would be available from the most remote locations.  One day you might even be able to rent a movie without having to walk or drive to your local VHS or DVD rental outlet (then again to return it before being fined for being overdue!).  We could see that the world would be transformed, and it would all be for the better!

Back then I don't recall anyone envisaging that the advent of ubiquitous, affordable Internet for everyone would bring with it any serious downsides, let alone serious risks and threats.  Keep in mind the 1990's was a very different time, with nearly all the digital apps, services and content that we now consume daily not yet existing.

Throughout the 2000's we had the pleasure of seeing pretty-much everything that we had envisioned back in the 1990's come to life … except those stalwarts who continued to envisage internet connected refrigerators, a solution to a problem no-one knew they had!

By the 2010’s the world had been connected in a way never seen by humankind.  With high-speed internet access, a person in one country could reach out and strike up a conversation with someone on the other side of the earth.  The biggest technology investments were now in the new products, services and business models that were now possible in this wired-up world.

For example, an explosion in social media brought people together across the globe.  You could now connect with other like-minded folks from all over the world, not just in their city, state or country.  In many ways this was a great thing, e.g. for people with niche interests and hobbies, and those with friends, family and business connections abroad.  There was however a concerning downside.  People would also connect with others around the world with dangerous, fringe and/or extreme opinions.  Those people could then work together to amplify those opinions surfacing them to the more mainstream.  We were being exposed to more and more influence, and more concerningly a greater and greater volume of misinformation or outright disinformation.

In addition, criminals of all kinds were attracted to the Internet because of the sheer number of people they could reach from a distance with a great deal of stealth and anonymity.  Organized crime, petty crime, scammers, fraudsters, extortionists, racketeers, vandals, thieves.

Every second of every day, autonomous software (sometimes referred to as robots or just “bots”) are now scanning devices and networks that are connected to the Internet, looking for weak points such as unpatched software or misconfigured systems.  These automated bots are akin to petty criminals walking down streets checking car door handles for unlocked vehicles hoping to find one left unsecured, allowing them to quickly snatch valuables without much effort. 

More visible are the many petty criminals that blast crude phishing emails and messages indiscriminately, such as those pretending to come from a streaming service or a major bank, asking you to log in to address some problem or issue by clicking on a link in the email.

At the other end of the cybercrime scale, organised criminals can spend months if not years, surveilling high value targets and planning heists reminiscent of the movie Oceans 11. In 2016 hackers stole USD $81 million from Bangladesh’s national bank, and very nearly managed to steal USD $1 billion.

The Internet, a tool for so much good, was being increasingly harnessed as a weapon for bad.  I had been starry eyed.  Tools can be used for both good and bad, and the Internet was one of the most revolutionary and powerful tools ever developed.

In the second half of this article I will delve deeper, looking at the significant role that Social Media plays, and how Artificial Intelligence will turbocharge all this, and the very concerning, if not downright scary, impact.

#cybersecurity #cyber #socialmedia #AI #smallbusiness