Simon Moores loves fast cars and motorbikes, but when it comes to
broadband he's still got the brakes on. Here's why.
All right, I'll admit it. I haven't got a broadband connection at
home. I do have four PCs, three PDAs, two PlayStations, two
goldfish and a hamster named Eric, but no BT OpenWorld. So why
not?
It's simple really. I use the Internet mostly for e-mail, and it's
mission critical. Dial-up works and, although two tin cans and a
piece of string might work equally well, I know that on those rare
occasions the dial tone disappears, BT will have it running again
within 24 hours.
What worries me are the nightmare stories I have heard of broadband
customers locked in their houses for weeks at a time, waiting for
an engineer to arrive and fix the fault. I'm sure it's all
exaggerated, but can I afford the risk? One day, maybe, but not
just yet.
Last week, I attended the launch of the
Asymmetric
Threats Contingency Alliance Alliance in London. As the
meeting was under Chatham House rules, there's very little I can
tell you about other than mentioning that broadband entered the
discussion.
I was having a chat with Professor Jim Norton who was, until
recently, the chairman of Deutsche Telekom (UK). We were both
worrying about broadband take-up and security or, should I say, the
lack of it.
Ironically, both of us had at one time or another flagged the risks
of open broadband connections to government at some time or other
but it seems very little or nothing has been done to educate 1.2
million subscribers about the dangers of the information
superhighway.
It's a guess, and only a guess, that the systems of least 5% of
broadband subscribers are infected by Trojan Horse software. Others
would estimate this percentage to be much higher. Now if you think
in terms of denial-of-service attacks, then there's an army of
25,000 PCs that could be used as hosts to trigger an attack on
Santa's Web site and ruin Christmas in the process.
I like the idea of being constantly online and I take it for
granted at the office, because I know I'm protected by a couple of
firewalls and server-based anti-virus software.
However, with the overall trend for digital attacks on a steady
upward curve, with 31,322 overt digital attacks recorded in 2001
and 64,408 - more than double - recorded in 2002 already, according
to digital risk specialists mi2G, I'm worried government is
ignoring the evidence of danger in the race to encourage as many
people to join the information revolution as quickly as
possible.
Next week the UK's first
e-Crime
Congress takes place in London. It will attract experts
from all over the world. It might be a good time for the
government's UK Online campaign to launch a "Safe Surfing"
campaign, although I can't yet see BT offering the equivalent of a
digital condom with every new home connection.
What's your view?
Is Broadband Britain ignoring the
dangers on the information superhighway?
Tell us in an e-mail >>CW360.com reserves
the right to edit and publish answers on the Web site. Please state
if your answer is not for publication.
ZentelligenceSetting the world to rights with the collected thoughts and
opinions of the futurist writer, broadcaster and Computer Weekly
columnist Simon Moores.