Putting controls on the internet

From child porn to the theft of copyrighted material, there is a need for regulation in cyberspace. But how can it be achieved, asks Diarmaid Condon.

THE London Conference on Cyberspace took place earlier this month. One of the main items up for discussion was that great paradox of the information technology era — how do we maximise the benefits of online activity and reduce the obvious problems that exist in this network of interconnectivity?

As one speaker put it, “Anything on a networked computer can be hacked. Everything is going online, therefore everything will eventually be capable of being hacked”. It is a worrying scenario as the putting of one’s eggs all in one basket always is. If somebody figures out how to kill a lot of computers all at the same time, we could be in big trouble.