Daily News Editorial

Defending Lanka’s cyberspace frontline

COVID-19 has given the popular social media term ‘going viral’ a physically deadly meaning to all of us. Computer malware, because of its operation as software that intrudes and spreads throughout computer systems at speed, are as destructive in digital systems as physical viruses are in the human body.

Since the dawn of human civilisation, the world has known of the physical devastation caused by biological viruses, especially the communicable ones, although it is only in the 1930s that we could actually see them, with the advent of electron microscopes. Since the late 20th Century, humanity has become so dependent on digital communications and computer systems, that the damage caused by computer viruses is considered almost as damaging as the biological disease-causing ructive ways. Digital communications are, today, enabling the greatest ever human consultation and collaboration in the battle to contain and ultimately suppress the COVID-19 pandemic. The degree of digital communications usage today, in terms of volume and geographical ones.

It is ironical that, in the 21st Century, humanity is now discovering that the biological and digital viruses are complementary in both constructive and immensely destscale and, in depth of content, is truly historic.

On the one hand digital communication systems, popularly termed ‘cyberspace’, are being used to the optimum for the immediate contingency response to the pandemic. This includes sharing of data, research and administrative remote deliberations and, public communications to manage societal reactions and guide social hygiene, among other things.

On the other hand, the digital data and communications networks have opened up an exotic new cosmos of remote human interaction that is now being explored in all areas of collective human activity – economic, administrative, technocratic and professional. Humanity, even as it struggles with poverty, war, social oppression and immense ecological degradation, is, under the compulsions of a deadly health crisis, exploring cyberspace for virtual alternatives to social interactions now blocked by counter-pandemic measures.

It could be said that the world’s digital data and communications systems have reached such a stage of maturity that its powerful new sinews are now opportunely available for dealing with one of the worst global emergencies confronted by humanity in centuries. What is ironic is that the sheer speed of human communications and movement achieved by humanity today, including the speed of data exchange, contributed to the contagion. COVID-19 seems to be the fastest spreading contagion ever, and the awesome processing and transmission speeds and capacities of 21st Century digital systems are a critically appropriate counter to it.

At the same time, our digital systems are being abused and manipulated in ways that could undermine these efforts and misguide human users into behaviour that spreads rather than counters the contagion. This is why the public needs to be alert not only for the physical disease threat but also for the viral and criminal threat we face in cyberspace.

Just last week the information technology authorities in Sri Lanka detected and responded to several ‘cyber attacks’ on the digital systems of some public and private sector institutions. These seemed to be criminally motivated in terms of commercial plunder and, the country’s cyber management and support infrastructure responded quickly enough to ensure minimal loss of data and finance.

In the previous week, no less than five public and private institutions came under simultaneous cyber-attacks. In these cases, there seems to have been political motivation originating from overseas remnants of the crushed former secessionist movement.

The Information & Communications Technology Agency (ICTA) and the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (SLCERT), are the lead agencies, along with the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), managing Sri Lanka’s digital data storage and communications systems. SLCERT units already have a reputation of consistent and successful professional response in cyberspace contingencies, and went active immediately to deal with the latest cyber attacks. The Air Force’s own IT units, previously tested in cyber warfare with now defunct secessionist groups operating overseas, also gave their support.

As described above, the world’s digital systems have now taken on a new critical importance for the whole of society, not just in the combatting COVID-19. Some dimensions of organisational life, in the economy, administration and corporate management, among others, are being transformed forever as we get used to working from home or, engaging in planning and decision-making remotely or, operating technology remotely.

Thus, the defence of our cyberspace is now becoming an integral part of the overall defence of our geophysical territory and society. Both the public and private sectors and, also, civil society organisations relevant to aspects of public health, security and social management, must all collaborate in further building up the architecture – institutional and virtual – in the defence of our cyberspace.

Cyberspace may be as infinite and vast as the physical world and humanity’s engagement with it is inevitably multi-dimensional. All relevant stakeholders in society, therefore, need to be involved in its exploration.

The Island Editorial

When clay feet of gods crack

The best description of what caused the painful death of George Floyd at the hands of the US police has come from the lawyer of the victim’s family, Benjamin Crump: "It was not the coronavirus pandemic that killed George Floyd. It was the other pandemic. The pandemic of racism and discrimination." This particular pandemic, however, has hardly spared any nation.

Speaking, at Thursday’s memorial service for Floyd, rights activist Al Sharpton declared that the victim had changed the world and the fight would go on until the whole justice system was changed. His declaration may have struck a responsive chord with people the world over, but the question is how long the ‘change’ and the ‘fight’ will last.

Police brutality against, and racial attacks on, black Americans has a long history which is replete with mass uprisings. However, none of these events has brought about the desired change. The Harlem riots, in 1935, left about five people dead. Thirty-four people perished in the Detroit clashes, in 1943. The killing of a black teenager triggered violent clashes in 1964. Riots in Watts, Los Angeles, in 1965, led to the killing of at least 34 people. Race riots swept across the US, in 1967, and left scores of people dead. In 1968, the assassination of Martin Luther King sparked riots in most parts of the US and about 50 persons died therein. (Historians believe the number of deaths may have been much higher.) In 1980, the acquittal of four police officers involved in the killing of a Black youth, in Miami, led to a wave of violence, which snuffed out about 20 lives. The savage beating of a black man and the subsequent acquittal of police officers responsible for the attack resulted in race riots, which left about 63 people killed and properties worth billions of dollars destroyed, in 1992. A New York police officer killed a black man, triggering riots, in 2014. The following year another victim of police brutality died in Baltimore and violence broke out. In 2016, the police killed African Americans, triggering riots in some states.

Thus, one is being overoptimistic when one expects the murder of Floyd to help end institutional racism or change the US justice system. However, it will give the Black Lives Matter movement a new impetus.

Meanwhile, sundown towns and counties, which the so-called coloured people once had to leave before sunset, may not be there in the US, and Blacks may be able to move about without carrying the Green Book, but discrimination against non-whites is far from over. Behind America’s façade of ethno-religious tolerance and democracy, there exists a racist deep state. The election of Donald Trump as the President marked the resurgence of White supremacism.

Many thought the election of Trump’s immediate predecessor, President Barack Obama, signalled a new beginning in the US race relations and urged other nations, troubled by ethnic tensions, to follow the American example, but what is going on, in the US, at present, is proof that it was only a false dawn. His election had more to do with the depths of despair the Bush administration and the global financial meltdown had plunged the US into than any improvement in race relations.

That the US is not short of enlightened citizens who cherish the core values and principles enunciated by the founding fathers is evident from the salutary ethnic mix in the ongoing protests. However, institutional racism has eaten into the social fabric of the US as in other countries including the US allies that have taken upon themselves the task of defending global democracy and human rights. It finds expression in police brutality and various other forms of acrimony and hatred towards African Americans.

The brutal killing of Floyd was not the cause of the riots that are sweeping across the US; it was only the trigger that gave vent to people’s pent-up anger. One may recall the Occupy Wall Street protest campaign, which was fuelled by the frustration of the Americans, especially the youth, at income inequality, corporate greed and the influence of money on politics. That protest fizzled out owing to government resistance, but it gave rise to Black Lives Matters, etc.

It has become clear, once again, that the most powerful human rights god has feet of clay, and they are cracking.

Daily Mirror Editorial

Biodiversity: Urgent and existential

The United Nations yesterday celebrated one of the most important days of the year — World Environment Day. Experts have for several years been emphasising the vital need for people to get involved actively in the battle against climate change. If this crisis is not resolved, the experts say that within the next two decades, many islands including our neighbour Maldives will disappear from the earth and even islands like Sri Lanka will lose a large part of the coastland. That means thousands of families will be displaced and they will have to find new houses in other places.

Not only world experts but even spiritual leaders have proclaimed the need for a clean environment and biodiversity. For instance, the Lord Buddha proclaimed: “May all beings be happy.” That means we cannot destroy or harm anyone or anything including people, animals and trees. Other religions too protect the nature as part of their theology or philosophy. That is why we are told to refer to the sun as brother sun and moon as sister moon. People need to consider nature as our sister or brother.

According to the UN, the food we eat, air we breathe, water we drink and climate that makes our planet habitable all come from nature. For instance, each year, marine plants produce more than a half of our atmosphere’s oxygen and a mature tree cleans our air, absorbing 22 kilos of carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen in exchange.

Despite all benefits our nature gives us, we still mistreat it. That is why we need to work on that. That is why we need this observance of World Environment Day. Since 1974, it has been celebrated every year on June 5: engaging governments, businesses, celebrities and citizens to focus their efforts on a pressing environmental issue.

This year, the theme is biodiversity – a concern that is both urgent and existential. Recent events from bushfires in Brazil, the United States and Australia to locust infestations across East Africa – and now, a global pandemic – demonstrate the interdependence of humans and the webs of life in which they exist.

According to the UN, biodiversity is the foundation that supports all life on land and below water. It affects every aspect of human health, providing clean air and water, nutritious food, scientific understanding and medicine sources, natural disease resistance and climate change mitigation. Changing or removing one element of this web affects the entire life cycle and can produce negative consequences.

Human actions including deforestation, encroachment on wildlife habitats, intensified agriculture and acceleration of climate change have pushed nature beyond its limits, the UN warns. It would take 1.6 earths to meet the demands humans make of nature each year. If we continue on this path, the biodiversity loss will have severe implications for humanity including the collapse of food and health systems.

The UN says the emergence of COVID-19 has underscored the fact that, when we destroy biodiversity, we destroy the system that supports human life. Today, it is estimated that, globally, about one billion cases of illness and millions of deaths occur every year from diseases caused by coronaviruses. About 75 per cent of all emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted to people by animals.

In Sri Lanka, the government needs to encourage people to actively take part in the battle against climate change. At a personal level, we could do it by saving water or electricity and planting a tree or trees in our home gardens. For instance, every time we switch off non-essential night bulbs or other electrical equipment, we are contributing to the battle against climate change. When opening taps to wash our hands or utensils, we need to open them only halfway. The water used to wash rice, vegetables and food items could be collected in a big can and used to water the plants, instead of using freshwater. This maybe difficult but the difficult way is often the better way. If we could reduce our shower bath times from twenty minutes to fifteen, we could save litres of freshwater. Some enterprising and eco-friendly citizens have used equipment to divert the shower bath water to the toilet system while others are using equipment for rainwater harvesting.

As King Parakramabahu the Great has said, not a single drop of rainwater should be allowed to go waste and we should use rainwater for sustainable human development.