When people were getting their knickers in a twist in relation to Y2K problem, I was in government. I used to get a lot of questions about it. Part of my job was to prepare for all eventualities, without creating unnecessary panic. My response Y2K hype always included reference to a Sinhala aphorism about people who slept on mats on the floor had little to fear about falling off beds. Appears that logic will not apply to cyber warfare.
Some time back I wrote about the dangers of the emergence of an International Internet Union at the behest of Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao. They’ve held a conference in London to beat it back, but apparently were missing something really important: a counter narrative. In his closing message, he said: “State-sponsored attacks are not in the interests of any country, long term… those governments that perpetrate them need to bring them under control.” He did not name names. Some private-sector delegates like Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales were less reticent.