XplanaZine

The sudden weekend eruption of “sapphire” or “slammer, ” a malicious worm that crippled Internet traffic for more than a day, is a good example of the real importance of security to the average consumer — sustained connectivity. Sure, the incidence of identity theft increased in 2002. And the issues of terrorism, intellectual property, and spam are hot topics of concern for many.

But what really mobilizes the users, and what lies as the real preoccupation behind these other issues, is the danger to their general connectivity posed by such security threats. It is analogous to security in our analog world.

We want the government and police to keep things safe primarily so we can go on about our business as usual. Crime becomes threatening, at times, because it affects us personally, but generally because it threatens to disrupt the status quo of our existence. That disruption of our expectations, like having our Internet connectivity interrupted, is what really concerns us. Please, take care of those hackers — especially if they are involved in some activity that affects our ability to connect.

But as long as the illegal acts only involve music companies or foreign states of power, we really don’t care. Now, what I find amazing in all of this is that the people administering our systems and who are apparently so preoccupied with security, have failed completely to grasp what is really important about their jobs. Many sysadmins, we learned after the crisis, had failed to apply the patch that Microsoft had made available earlier in the year. Even Microsoft’s own systems were ravaged because of such complacency and oversight.

Well, as a citizen who uses the Internet, I want to lodge a simple request. Keep the thing up for cryin’ out loud. To all the sysadmins out there who think security is important in and of itself, or who are caught up in the glamorous dreams of being a detectives — forget it! Security for us (the ones whose interests keep you employed) is about keeping the status quo, making our Internet stable. Trust me, we’re fairly informed as consumers and we’re willing to take our chances when it comes to the “dangers” lurking out there. You don’t have to worry so much about “protecting” us from the “bad guys.”

On the other hand, if you don’t start paying attention to what’s really important — our connectivity — we may all rise up and start a quiet revolt. What would that look like? Well, it might start by rounding up a bunch of sysadmins who took our connectivity so lightly that they didn’t apply the appropriate patches, and running them out of town on the rail.