Cyber Security
Welcome to the future
A By Anthony C Caputo
28 | Asia Pacific Security Magazine
“boundary” can be defined as a line that marks the limits of an area; a dividing line, real or imaginary, separating a subject or sphere of activity. The keyword here is “imaginary.” Laws and rules (both man-made and by physics) were/are designed to create those imaginary lines, much like the sides of good versus evil, but humanity doesn’t follow laws and rules in black-and-white, especially now that there’s 256 shades of pixel grays. Human beings are too self-indulgent, self-possessed with personal needs and desires. Many of them twisted by a bombardment of media overload. A friend would give us a copy of a song or movie, first on tape, then CD/DVD, then emailed instantly. These new generations copy movies, games, books, and pass them along, creating gray areas to serve our selfish purposes. The digital invasion just made it all easier, leaving a disruptive path along the way. As organic machines, human beings are fed higher education’s left-brained logic and mathematical view of the world, which further fuels our descent into a universe of ones and zeros. We continuously neglect the right-brain’s thirst for creativity, music, love, compassion and beauty – the very things that make us unique not only in the world of animals, but in anything of our own creation. Sure, we can create pretty Smartphone’s that empowers our creativity, plays our favorite music and connects us to our loved ones, but is the technology empathetic, compassionate and protective? Can the Smartphone itself protect you and your digital assets and information? Of course not, because it really isn’t that smart – still needs your fingerprint, pass code and/or online ID.
Our continued thirst, first for survival (after all, the Internet was designed to survive a nuclear attack), then individualistic empowerment, marketing, entertainment, and for monetary gain to feed the capitalistic juggernaut inadvertently created a virtual universe of digital data, further deteriorating our own importance in the overall logistical corporeal world. This invasion of the digital universe destroyed all imaginary and physical boundaries, creating a level playing field for everyone and everything, from the convicted murderer researching legal loopholes, to the innocent school girl, desperate for a copy of her favorite boy-band’s album to the Uber driver and the monolithic Yellow Cab Company. Unfortunately, in order to keep up with the ever growing, rapid dissemination of data, and metamorphosis, through a myriad of new intuitive person-tomachine interface devices, we create even more data –much faster and better. If God truly created Man in his own image, than is God also an organic machine, or a version of our own image that resides in an alternative universe that moves so fast there is no yesterday or tomorrow and everything happens at once? Alternatively, like God with Adam and Eve, did we also see our own creations molded into something extraordinary, pure and righteous, but then, much like ourselves, our creations ran amok throughout human society, and evolved into the monstrosities we now see every day on the news? These new digital generations have blurred the physical boundaries, escaping into a virtual existent while driving in the real world, causing 25% of all the automobile accidents.