All Hail the Incompetent Masses of Cyberspace

Stand in a crowd. Now close your eyes and listen. Count sheep. Count bits... count whatever you want until you hear someone use the word "cyber-anything" in a sentence. If you make it to double digits, I'd be surprised.

Its amazing to watch. As "cyber space," "cyber crime" and "cyber war" become the next big thing, watch the re-branding- the sudden emergence of "cyber security experts." I know some of these guys... smart? Yes. Experienced? Some are. Camera friendly? Not the ones I know ;) . "Experts?" Hardly. In to paraphrase the words of the venerable Warren Buffett: "first there are the innovators. Then there are the imitators. Finally, the incompetent masses." All hail... the incompetent masses have arrived. Article after article espousing "wisdom" such as: "we need to work with our service providers better"... or we need to focus on education or... "government needs to work more closely with industry"... the list goes on...

Why should we care?

If you are a black hat hacker, you are drooling at the fresh victims they are about to serve up to you. Half-informed designs feeding under-skilled developers the raw ingredients of your next digital playground.

If you are an IT professional, you are rolling your eyes as you see snake oil salesmen line out the door and attempt to divert intellectual capital and your IT budget toward their latest "security solution" and away from projects that could make progress in managing the risk of operating in the information domain, cyberspace, e-market place- whatever you want to call it.

This is a serious issue. New ideas are absolutely welcome. But if you are new to the scene... listen. Read. THEN speak... and don't hold yourself out as an expert... as soon as you do that, you become another one of the charlatans.

Depending on your perspective (to paraphrase Charles Dickens): "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness"

My guess is, it's all of the above...

~CPwnk