Botnets getting frightening

I work in the IT industry, and when I read about the United States government urging large corperations and Internet Service Providers to volunteer their information in order to stop the spread of botnets and viruses, it gets a little more frightening than usual.

At face value, I find this very similar to CISPA, which had the goal of created an information sharing network between large corporations (see: ISP’s and AntiVirus vendors), and the government. Now they’re doing it without any law whatsoever, just asking people to interact, under the banner of fighting off large scale computer viruses. Sounds harmless enough, and I’ll let other people handle the consipiracy theories about how this will some how come down to the fight against piracy. What concerns me is how this website crops up just a few days after Kaspersky unveils what they’ve found about the new “cyberweapon” called Flame.

While it has been claimed that the United States government was behind the Stuxnet attack, it seems evermore scary that the government is trying to build a consortium to try and prevent the outbreaks. It’s paramount to chemical warefare without a cure: attack first, and ask questions later – what do we do when it spreads within our own borders? We aren’t prepared for that, just yet. And who can we turn to for help? It’s rumored now that the Chinese are using our reliance on their manufacturing process against us.

If you’re a conspiracy theorist, this is the week for you. If you’re simply a rational person tryign to make sense of it all, and wondering what this means for stresses and hurdles in the coming weeks, months, and years for your beloved tech industry? You’re a little scared. Things certainly aren’t about to get any easier.