I thought my old computer had finally given up the ghost this morning. When I first load the browser, the home page opens two tabs - my Hotmail inbox and my blog. This morning it would only load the blog.
I tried re-loading the browser. No good. I tried re-starting the computer. Still no good. It kept coming back to the same trouble loading this site message. I tried loading other regular sites and they all worked just fine, and so I wondered... I loaded the BBC News site, and leading both the national and world pages was the case of Microsoft's worldwide crash. Relief all round. And that made me question my attitude to something.
The last I heard, Microsoft were saying that their systems hadn't been hacked; the breakdown was entirely due to them failing under pressure. But the question arose anyway. We're led to believe that the big internet hackers (not scammers, you understand, they're different, at least usually they are) are among the world's major criminals. And I believed it, but now I see them differently. Now I see them as agents pointing the world to its big mistake:
Over the last few decades -- since the invention of the microchip, I suppose -- all major institutions from governments to the corporate world have been rushing headlong into building almost total reliance on computer technology, thereby generating greater wealth through needing fewer staff, and reducing person to person contact generally. And all this while microchip technology is still in its relative infancy and not yet adequately reliable. I feel that, along with wars and environmental catastrophes, the requirement to acquire, keep upgraded, and rely on electronic machines is a major source of stress worldwide. And that, I feel -- maybe a little perversely -- is what the hackers are pointing out to us. I doubt it will make any difference.
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