the onda

The story of the clever Chinese hackers compromising Google's data center (along with 20 other companies) is almost too juicy to believe. Everyone likes the notion of a super smart hacker enemy who can, at a whim, bring crashing down the electronic infrastructure on which we are increasingly dependent. Especially if, along with the jingoistic fud, we can get a picture of a Chinese cyber cafe with scads of young men passionately pounding on computers (nevermind that they may be playing WoW).

All of which is why I think I might be more in the camp of Douglas Rushkoff, who suggested today that this might be Google's red herring for the fact that running all of your life from a server which you can only access through a leaky and insecure browser (HTTPS "fixes" notwithstanding) might not be the best plan— unless of course your entire engine for growth consists of getting more eyes to do just that.

I'm not sure that it is as stark as Rushkoff claims, but it certainly seems plausible that some brilliant PR person who has read a few too many Michael Crichton books giddy over the spin that could take care of two birds with one stone: the potential flaws with our favorite new mode of computing and the oopseys around making an "Evil" deal with the Chinese censors a few years ago.

And then again, may this is all just the Daemon just getting started...