We visit MAD once again...

There was a phrase used back in the Cold War called MAD....Mutual Assured Destruction. Essentially it meant that no matter what the 'good' or bad' guys did in a first strike, there would be enough mega tonnage left to ensure that the other side would also be obliterated in a nuclear war. Therefore, there would be no 'winner's' in a nuclear exchange only total annihilation of both sides and the onset of what was termed 'nuclear winter' ending in the destruction of mankind.

It appears that we are getting closer to MAD in the cyber arena. Morris (2016) writes that "Someone is Testing Methods for Taking Down the Entire Internet". According to Morris, 'foreign powers', in all likelihood China or Russia, is gradually pushing the defenses of the Internet but doing so in a way that lets everyone else know they are doing it, flexing their cyber muscle as you will, but not stepping over the boundary.

The problem with this is that just like in the Cold War, something can go wrong, and armageddon will result with major cyber powers launching massive cyber attacks on each other...which could end up escalating to kinetic action.

Whoever is playing this cat and mouse game had better be very careful in what they are doing.

Sources

Morris, D. (2016). Someone is Testing Methods for Taking Down the Entire Internet . Retrieved from the Internet at http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/someone-is-testing-methods-for-taking-down-the-entire-internet/ar-BBwC7oX?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=SNYDHP