When we talk about hackers, the term doesn’t usually mean what it used to. The reason for this is the difference in what they used to be and what many of them are today. In the old days a hacker was usually a single person breaking into websites or getting into computer games and copying them. Today there is a completely different definition for a lot of hackers and that is a group of people, many of which work for a country and are tasked with getting secrets from the government and industrial sites of those countries. They operate more like a business and as I said it is now a group activity. There are still some who consider themselves hackers who want to find out secrets, such as UFO activity and will go into government sites and penetrate into areas which are against the law, but even non-government hackers seem to have joined into groups like Anonymous. Instead of hacking this should be called technological spying.

Some others are amassing different ways to take down countries. I am sure if we could examine the computers in North Korea we would see how they are spending their days figuring out how to take down the electrical grid in this country, overload our nuclear facilities and other such destructive activities. We are probably trying to do something similar, but unfortunately for us that country is so backward as far as technologically is concerned, we could never do as much damage to them as they could do to us. I remember one thing which left an impression on me. It was a view from a satellite at night. It was one of those views where you can see the lights in the populated areas of the earth. When you looked at most of the world it was covered with lights and yet when the satellite was over North Korea it was almost completely dark except for the area the government was in. It was like something out of the middle ages.

One of the things worrying the government besides someone bringing down the electrical grid, which should have been solved years ago, is the fact computer programs can be altered to do damage. Some of the talk going around now is it would be very easy to alter the programs which control industrial motors and burn them out. You might not think this is such a big deal, but it really is since these motors control so many different things. Computer scientists said they found a way for computer operators with limited skill to do this in one simple step. This could destroy things like fans and pumps in water plants, upset mining operations and destroy heating and cooling systems. It turns out there is a vulnerability in many of our variable-frequency drives which would allow this to happen.

We know our automobiles are becoming vulnerable to hackers, but could they also get control of airplanes? Supposedly it has already been accomplished and that was in 2015 when a plane was made to veer slightly off course. It was done by a professional security researcher to see if it was possible. Boeing said this was impossible. A Boeing statement said, “While these systems receive [plane] position data and have communication links, the design isolates them from the other systems on airplanes performing critical and essential functions.” Some were upset even at this statement, because it seemed to contradict itself. Either the system was isolated or did receive data. We all know a system that receives data may be vulnerable to hacking. This has been a concern even before the FAA raised the issue to Boeing in 2008.

We know what happened 9/11, it will be burned into our memories forever. Think about a time when a terrorist will not have to hijack a plane, just tap into its computer and take over control and crash it into a target. We are looking at a time in the future where it may become possible for terrorists to crash planes and vehicles at will. Automation is a great thing, but all technology has a down side and anything connected to the internet provides an access point for hackers. Even closed systems have had data stolen from them by spies. It seems like nothing is safe anymore. It used to be nuclear war was averted by the threat of mutual destruction. Today the only thing stopping some countries from using computers to destroy us is the fact we will do it to them and maybe even drop a bomb or two on them afterwards.

I think with all of the new technology we are using in our weapons we may have to worry about other countries turning our own weapons against us during a war. Take drones for example. What is to stop another country from bringing down a fleet of drones or even turning them against us? It seems to only be a matter of developing software capable of doing this. Remember Iran captured one of our drones intact. I don’t know if they used superior technology or just flew a plane above it and snared it in a net or some other primitive way. They were pretty good at figuring out a low tech solution to stop heat seeking missiles from hitting their ships. They used to pull barges of burning wood. The missiles would hit the barge and not the ship pulling it.

It seems the more our technology advances, the more there is a chance for it to be tampered with. One of the problems is our computers and even our phones are getting more powerful every day and thus more capable of causing trouble in the right hands. More and more devices are becoming wireless and as we know many want all our home devices to operate connected to the internet. This might be great in an ideal world where everyone has the same to lose, but does anyone think some guy sitting in a tent in the middle of the desert, who is about to take down all of the medical machines in our hospitals is worried about retaliation?