technoculture203-09

We have focused on the nature of ownership and the influence on corporates over the web. Something else we have focused on is government and privacy, particularly in light of the illegal wiretapping scandal in the US. Another issue that should concern us is that we are unwittingly involved in an ongoing international battle between nation states attempting to assert authority in cyberspace. As such there is in-depth research on strategies, implications and ethical debater taking place at an international level. It would be easy on one hand to dismiss these manoeuvres as happening at a level that doesn't affect us, but it's worth noting that the one time one nation was prepared to go to cyber war with another, the plan was withdrawn because of the shear scale of collateral damage likely. Ironically the interconnectivity that makes cyber warfare possible is the very dilemma that has prevented nation states from launching full scale cyber wars. The concern isn't whether an attack would be effective, rather what the attack would do further along a network. So on one hand it might be feasible, even desirable, to destroy part of an energy network via cyber tactics, yet the knock on effect might be to take out the safety controls of a nuclear power station or to put civilian medical facilities off line. So there is a concern around this possibility. The fact that there seems to be a serious ethical debate at senior levels is reassuring.