Articles
Information Society – Pleasures and Pains
Dt: 15/5/15
Information Society – Pleasures and Pains
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
17 of May is observed as the World Telecom & Information Society Day since 1965 the centenary year of the International Telecom Union (ITU), the world’s oldest and first International organisation founded in Paris in 1865 as International Telegraph Union (ITU).
2. The world is now interconnected not only between governments but most significantly between the citizens themselves, thanks to Internet that is supported by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Electronics and communication infrastructure by way of satellites and optical fibre cables underground and on ocean beds provide the necessary infrastructure and the cell and microwave towers. For the world’s 725 cr people there are over 600 cr mobile telephones and 250 cr people connect to the Internet. In our country for the 125 cr population we have more than 100 cr mobile telephones and 25 cr Internet connections. The latter are expected to grow to 55 cr within the next 3 years. Hyper competition and wise regulation have brought down the prices for telecom and information services so that one-days’ wages of a daily labourer are able to buy a month’s telecom & IT and Internet service in our country. The mobile telephones which once were costing Rs. 15,000 with just one facility are now available for about Rs. 5000 with the most sophisticated capabilities like a camera , internet connection, radio and video, geographic positioning (GP) services and many more being developed.
3. Fantastic thing are happening in the interconnected world between the people themselves. They are able to create information, put it on the Internet to be available to anybody seeking it. Every two-days the world’s people are creating as much digital content as the entire humanity from the dawn of civilisation until the year 2003. This is 5 exabytes (5 followed by 18 zeros). With only 200 cr on the net, if this much information is being created, think of what the possible 600 cr people connected to the Internet, in the next 3 years would additionally create. Every minute 100 Hrs of You-Tube footage is being uploaded, up from 60 Hrs in 2012. 600 cr hrs of video footage is watched every month. Every day 2,300 cr text messages ( SMSs and e-mails) are sent over this global Internet. The growth has been remarkable - only 35 cr of people connected to the Internet in the year 2000, now it is over 200 cr. Similarly, in the year 2000 there were 75 cr mobile telephones; now there are 650 cr !
4. A more startling is coming. That is the Internet of Things (IOT). Today only human beings are communicating through the Internet. But homes are having not less than 10 appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators, microwaves, TV sets, burglar alarms and so on. Such things are 7000 cr now. These 7000 cr would also be connecting to the Internet of Things into which the present Internet of human beings is getting transformed. Huge amount of information will be flowing across the globe between human beings and things that serve them. Social media like the Face Book, You Tube, Linked, Uber, Twitter, etc., are putting human beings into contact with one another. Governments are losing their power to control people as people to people communications are taking place on the Internet. Revolutions like the Arab Spring (spanning Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq , Yemen ....) became possible because of the people to people communications against their dictatorial governments .
· Julian Assange an Australian in his late 20s founded Wiki Leaks. He broke into the most sophisticated websites of different departments of the Government of USA. He leaked thousands of secret, sensitive, diplomatic cables that were exchanged from various Embassies of US in the world between them and with the US government.
· William Snowden, another young man who was engaged on contract by the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) leaked the information that the US was gathering about heads of governments, their departments, influential citizens, policy makers and businesses around the world.
5. These two sensational leaks have shown how vulnerable the information stored in the websites of the Internet is to extremely skilled professionals called hackers. In order to secure the information sophisticated systems like firewalls and encryption, changing passwords and so on had been built. It requires 10 mln lines of code to build the most imaginable security of the information stored. But it requires only 125 lines of code in order to breach this security if vulnerabilities in the websites and their gate keeping systems are explored and detected.
6. The palm-held mobile devices are so intelligent that they are replacing the personal computer. They are becoming so inexpensive. Information is stored in clouds. Joseph McAfee the inventor of the anti-virus software (by which he became a multi millionaire) was involved in the murder of his neighbour. He fled from the USA and became an international fugitive. After months of silence, he gave an interview. He was photographed at that time. The iPhone4S which has a camera recorded the longitude and latitude of the place where he was (that is, the GPS capability in the cell phone) . One twitter user noticed the photo in the metadata and through him the US Intelligence found out the location - a swimming pool in the Ranchon Mary restaurant in Guatemala . He was nabbed.
7. Iran has centrifuges to separate Uranium 235 from Uranium 238 to prepare fissile material to make nuclear bombs. An Ukrainian hacked into the SCADA system of Iran’s nuclear facility and introduced a worm Stuxnet. The centrifuges were made to spin so excessively that the entire facility’ caught fire and was destroyed. No aerial bombing was necessary as the Israeli’s had to do to destroy the nuclear facility of Iraq in the 1970s.
· America is sending drones ( unmanned aerial vehicles). They have GPS system and small but deadly missiles. An Iranian hacker locked on to a drone sent by the USA to Iran for spying . He hacked into the GPS of the drone and modified it so that it would land not in the USA after the flight but in Iran itself. The Iranians triumphantly announced its capture to the discomfiture of the USA.
· A jihadi through an accomplice placed a mobile telephone part of which was wrapped in invisible tape containing a deadly explosive at the working place of the intended victim. He called that number and as the intended victim was picking it up, it exploded and killed the person.
8. Where is the perpetrator ? Not known. Who is it ? Not known. Similar is the case with the persons who put the Stuxnet in the SCADA of the Iranian nuclear facility. As the Internet spans nations the location of the warrior and attributing it to a definite person is extremely difficult and legally un-establishable.
9. China, USA, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Ukraine and some other countries are now raising armies of hackers. Some arms’ length from the State and some as in China are just units of the Peoples Liberation Army. These countries engage in information wars, hacking into the most sensitive and secret information -containing websites of targeted countries. As every activity like banking, demployment of armies and airforces, telecom & electricity networks and process industries are all based upon ICTs and are connected to the Internet, it is possible to wage wars without sending the armed forces physically to the enemy country. In this regard the most capable are China followed by Israel and the USA. India is at the receiving end. It is estimated that we need to train about 5 lakh Internet security professionals in order to protect our networks.
10. And so ICTs and Internet while being the greatest benefactor of mankind, are also the most potentially dangerous technologies that may foster and promote subversion, terrorism, smuggling, revolutions and international wars without ground forces. Exhausted by the Second World War nations created the United Nations and its Security Council to pre-empt deadly world wars which are physically waged . But wars can now be waged and countries can be devastated by operations on the Internet. Intellectuals are therefore thinking of an international organisation which will bring order and governance into this non-physical, that is, cyber world based upon the Internet. Would wisdom prevail before villains and misanthropes bring destruction upon humanity? (1, 396 words)
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