We'd be better off without the Internet

If I could, I would repeal the Internet. It is the technological marvel of the age, but it is not — as most people imagine — a symbol of progress. Just the opposite. We would be better off without it. I grant its astonishing capabilities: the instant access to vast amounts of information, the pleasures of YouTube and iTunes, the convenience of GPS and much more. But the Internet’s benefits are relatively modest compared with previous transformative technologies, and it brings with it a terrifying danger: cyberwar. Amid the controversy over leaks from the National Security Agency, this looms as an even bigger downside…

What’s unclear is how “infrastructure” systems (electricity grids and the like) have been penetrated and, on command, might be compromised. In the mid-1980s, most of these systems were self-contained. They relied on dedicated phone lines and private communications networks. They were hard to infiltrate. Since then, many systems switched to the Internet. “It’s cheaper,” says James Andrew Lewis, an Internet expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The architects of these conversions apparently underestimated the risk of sabotage.

As yet, there has been little. One publicized incident occurred in 2012 when hostile software (“malware”) infected an estimated 30,000 computers of Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s oil company. Business operations suffered, but oil production and delivery continued. More powerful was the Stuxnet virus, reportedly developed by the United States and Israel to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program. The future could be more tumultuous. If the United States attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, Lewis thinks it would retaliate with cyberattacks against banks and electricity networks. Press stories report that Iran has already increased its attacks. There’s a race between cyber offense and defense.