Dark Market [antikvár]

PROLOGUE [email protected] In humanity's relentless drive for convenience and economic growth, we have developed a dangerous level of dependency on networked systems in a very short space of time: in less than two decades, huge parts of the so-called 'critical national infrastructure' (CNI in geekish) in most countries have come under the control of ever more complex computer systems. Computers guide large parts of our lives as they regulate our communications, our vehicles, our interaction with commerce and the state, our work, our leisure, our everything. At one of several cybercrime trials I have attended in recent years, Britairfs Crown Prosecution Service demanded the imposition of a so-called Prevention of Crime Order on a hacker, which would come into force after his release from prison. The Order would block him from accessing the Internet except for one hour a week under the supervision of a police officer. 'By the time my client completes his sentence,' the defendant's lawyer remarked at the hearing, 'there will barely be a single human activity that will not somehow be mediated by the Internet. How is my client supposed to live a normal life under such circumstances.^' he asked rhetorically How indeed. Those who have left their mobile phone at home even for a few hours usually notice an intense irritation and a sense of loss, akin to cold turkey among more dependent users. Interestingly, when deprived of the device for three days, this corrosive feeling of unease is often replaced by a rush of liberation as one is transported back to a world, not so far away, where we neither had nor needed mobile