Features

What would they do with it?

There`s nothing you can do, so mindless fright is your only option. Hackers, news wires report, are set to take over the entire internet. And there`s a lot of internet to take over.

01 August 2008

In this enlightened age, that the media can still blow a story so comprehensively out of proportion is surprising. At the turn of the century, when dotcom hysteria was raging, a lot of people didn't understand the internet or the real nature and scale of online threats. Scary stories sold newspapers (and security software). "Armies of cyber-zombies", to quote one local vendor, stood ready to overrun the unsuspecting global village.

These days, there are three times as many people online as in 2000. The internet has 1.4 billion users and it consists of over 500 million hosts. So when someone says, "Internet flaw could let hackers take over the Web," as Agence France-Presse did last month, this is bigger than the Great Train Robbery.

ITWeb Premium

Get 3 months of unlimited access
No credit card. No obligation.

Already a subscriber Log in