Sound familiar? No, we’re not talking about the dire prognostications arising from last week’s hack attack that swamped parts of the Internet for a couple of hours. Rather, we’re talking about the “end of the world” Y2K problem that evaporated when the 20th century ended and the world kept right on going with only a few relatively minor glitches.
Last week’s weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth about the likes of Yahoo and eBay and E*Trade being closed down for a couple of hours sounds remarkably like the Millennium Bug hysteria that infected much of the news media as 2000 approached.
Well, folks, get a grip. It’s not as if security problems are a new phenomenon, on the Internet or elsewhere. Security problems are as old as commerce itself. For generations, dishonest bank employees have absconded with their ill-gotten gains. People regularly steal from warehouses or convert their employers’ supplies for use in their private businesses. Department stores budget for “inventory shrinkage,” also known as “shoplifting.” And the world has survived.
Let’s put last week’s Web site trashings in perspective. First, the nature of the Web–decentralized, quirky, largely free of government supervision–makes it vulnerable to attack. Second, those of us who use the Internet and e-mail and mobile phones and link our home computers to our offices aren’t exactly surprised when the systems fail. It happens all the time; eBay has crashed several times without being attacked from outside, and even the best Internet sites have outages and problems. But sooner or later the major bugs get worked out and life goes on. It’s how technology evolves.
Not being able to trade stocks or exchange smutty e-mails with your friends or download music because a Web site has the willies isn’t like having your pacemaker fail or having a plane crash. By the time the Internet gets to be an essential of everyday life for everyday people, you can be sure that it will be a lot more reliable than it is now. Fixing this kind of thing is what businesses driven by financial markets do. Greed has its uses. Meltdowns are bad for business–which is why companies spent what it took to fix the Y2K problem. Greed motivates e-business people too. Being publicly hacked and humiliated is bad for profits–and for stock prices. So e-biz types will spend what it takes to make this particular problem go away.
This isn’t to say that the market is perfect and there’s never a reason to worry. But you can be reasonably sure that by the time big problems have surfaced and disaster mongers foresee the end of the world, people with big bucks–and big reputations–on the line are going to figure out a fix. It may be expensive and messy–and extremely painful for the people involved–but it will get done. So the next time you hear Chicken Little running off at the mouth about the sky’s falling, remember that noise isn’t the same as news. Turn off your TV and computer and go take a nap. You’ll feel better. And if someday the meteor actually hits you’ll be awake enough to appreciate the end of the world.
