Thoughts on IT misuse and doomsday scenarios . . .

I cannot help but notice that more recent posts seem to focus on possible abuses or misuses of information technology (i.e. high-tech bank robberies, Die-Hard 4 type chaos, misuse of playstation computing power, etc.), within the Philippine setting.

Although I agree that these are possible developments, I do not think that they are likely to happen in the country anytime soon.

There are several reasons why, but I just want to highlight two of them. First of all we do not have the IT infrastructure to facilitate such a large-scale and high-level of misuse. Yes, a Filipino developed the “lovebug”, but notice that the country which probably suffered the most damage ($10B worth) is the United States, whose IT infrastructure is relatively more advanced than the Philippines’ in terms of the degree of connectivity of the different sectors within society. Yes we have relatively newer IT hardware but the Philippine IT infrastructure is market driven; the current trend is to development Philippine IT capability in order to facilitate the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. There is no push towards the interconnectivity of the different sectors of society, such as the government and business sector. There isn’t even a trend towards a higher degree of IT interconnectivity within a specific business concern. Consider the banking sector; yes there may be some banks which offer “internet banking” but most Philippine banks focus on traditional IT banking applications and systems which do not require that much interaction with other banks. So potential “high-tech” robbers will only have a handful of banks to choose from, and most probably these banks already have sufficient security measures to deter attempts to illegally access their systems.

Secondly, as Mr. Poblete pointed out, the Philippine government lacks political will. It lacks the political will to push the application of IT in other areas (i.e. Education and Government/Governance, a discussed in class), and not only to facilitate the growth of the certain businesses. “Ningas Kugon” I think is the proper term to describe the behavior of the Philippine government in terms of developing websites for its different departments. Only when the need arises, such as when the international community notices the government’s deficiencies in the area of “e-governance” does the government move to improve its IT capabilities. Even the development of our law on eCommerce (RA 8792) was due to international pressure.

We may be safe from the doomsday scenario of Die-Hard 4, but we also cannot develop and make full use of our IT capability with these obstacles in place.

http://www.bworldonline.com/OnlineExclusives/ebank/inside.php?id=001