by Richard Martin
There’s a saying: “An armed society is a polite society.”
Let’s apply that to cyberspace. The problem right now is that there is no real world, physical cost to bad behaviour. Online, many people act like the courageous driver who gives others the finger while safely ensconced behind the wheel, thinking they’re beyond retribution for their impoliteness.
We all really don’t need to worry about the occasional online jerk and troll. The more important problem is with the truly malicious actors. We’re not talking about trolls. We need to focus our attention on the cyber criminals, the state actors, and the epistemological warriors who exploit our openness, naïveté, and gullibility.
In the real world, most (yes, most) people will act in a civilized manner because there are real world consequences to being a jerk. They can be avoided, ostracized, punished, or even physically harmed. I don’t advocate aggression, but we all have an inherent right to self-defence.
The fix for cyber aggression is to make it too PHYSICALLY costly. I don’t mean to go beat someone up. I mean imposing a real world cost on bad or aggressive behaviour.
What if someone had to pay you to spam you? Or a cyberattack would lead to a counterattack that would drain someone’s resources, especially energy?
Copyright Richard Martin