About cyber warfare

There has been much anguish and hard words recently from the US administration about Chinese hackers stealing commercial secrets from US companies and infiltrating our military and infrastructure systems. But frankly I think the anguish is misplaced.

The world will always have hackers and gangsters and con men and anarchists who want to penetrate companies and governments for profit or political agendas. The Chinese are hacking our systems simply because they can. Actually, the French, supposed allies, have been doing it to us for a decade or more, and so have other countries.

No, the real culprit here is our own US government and US corporations, who for whatever reason have been remiss in not producing an internet infrastructure that is more resistant to this sort of penetration. It is frankly ludicrous that a nation with as much intellectual power as ours can't build an internet structure that is more secure. It is not easy to do, but it certainly can be done.

In fact, the existing systems, properly implemented and used, are not too bad. The problem is that far too many companies and government agencies aren't implementing them correctly, aren't thinking through the security issues well enough, don't have and enforce good enough procedures, aren't willing to pay enough to get good enough security experts, etc, etc.

It's like the coastal cities that ignore rising seas and deny global warming, and then are surprised when a storm surge inundates them. Duh! Getting mad at the storm is useless. Getting mad at hackers and nations that practice cyber warfare is useless and meaningless. The solution in both cases is to get real and build levees and walls and protection that works against the real threats.