China, Iran, and a number of other nations have built giant intranet systems which then connect to the overall global Internet. By doing this they can watch the traffic, censor information, and do their intelligence work. Unfortunately, in doing so they also find and eliminate dissension – we don’t like that concept in the United States because we believe in freedom and liberty above all else, nevertheless, this is how they do it in their countries. Okay so let’s talk about this for second shall we?
The NSA had a decent concept which was approved by Congress and that was to funnel the information from major Communications Systems which handle Internet, facsimile, and voice traffic and allow a computer to read through what is passing through that chokepoint. They call this system; Einstein 2 and 3. This makes sense, and this is a good way to do it. Why are they doing it here in the United States? Well, in 2003, they were worried about terrorism, and it’s a good way to find out who the bad guys are as communications come from overseas.
Lately, it has also been considered that once a system like this was up and running, it can also look for malicious computer code, viruses, or even worms which could infiltrate our software, banking system, stock market, military contractors, or infrastructure. It would also help anyone who had a computer, or was connected to the Internet via a smart phone, tablet, laptop, computer, or perhaps an entire IT system from catching a cold or virus as well. All this makes sense right? Sure it does, but you can imagine that those who wish to maintain privacy, thus guaranteeing freedom and liberty, specifically freedom of speech are up in arms over all this.
Now then, as the infiltrators try to get through this system, certainly they will figure out ways to get by it, but as we sift through the data we have collected we could also go back and look at all the previous data which came through, seemingly looking at data without time. In other words time is no longer a variable, as all past and present communication would be available. Strong algorithms could look for variations in various software viruses, malware, and worms – and get smarter as they go with artificial intelligence looking for new exploits.
Could this shut down the hackers once and for all? Could we catch all the terrorists? Could we use this to keep America safe? Perhaps the answer is yes, although it is a moving target, and every time we get better, so do the bad guys. However with such a system only super well-funded hackers, perhaps state-sponsored would have the money to keep up with such a system. In the future as long as no one uses it for ill purposes such as the other countries mentioned above, the US would be a lot safer with such a strategy. Please consider all this.
