The Cold War, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror ... we sure have our share of long pervasive wars don't we?

I'll preface this blog by stating I don't have any personal opinion one way or another about the current wars.  War might not be always a necessity, but it's a part of Earth life even down to the cellular level. 

We're still fighting a war in Iraq and a war in Afghanistan, but the media spotlight has already lost interest.  That has to make someone wonder, “What's next?” And there’s always been something next.

There have been a few very important factors in the last few pervasive wars in North America.  The first being that the public did not clearly understand the risks and factors until told so.  Yeah, I saw planes crash into the magnificent New York skyline, but myself and the near-entirety of the U.S. population knew nothing about terrorism as a whole before that day.  

Ronald Regan's war on drugs was similar: who in the U.S. knew anything about cartel overloads in South America, willing to suck the life out of millions of people just to build a bigger, more ostentatious villa in the Colombian hillside?

"What's next?" I ask.  I think, unfortunately, I already know the answer: the cyberwar.  Every day we hear of international governments hacking each other; or at least they're just now getting caught for doing so.  We have incredible masterminds at the helm of unfathomable networks, digitally controlling our identities -- many of which don't care who they work for as long as it pays well.

We're already on the cusp of digital manipulation and forgery for anything and everything.  Who hasn't heard about a database of a million or so social security numbers getting hacked?  In just this last month alone DailyTech pulled up a dozen or so articles detailing major compromises.

All it will take is a single catastrophic event at this point, and the media certainly isn't shy about looking for such a doomsday scenario.  "U.S. Nuclear Labs Hacked," says ABC News today.  The staff writer at ABC probably doesn't realize that Argonne used to host one of the largest U.S. piracy hubs for the better part of a decade; or that of the tens of thousands of machines hosted at those labs, several get hacked each day.

Think of many headlines you read about the next major Windows security flaw that will "certainly" take down the Internet as we know it -- even here at DailyTech I'm ashamed to admit. 

Cyberwar, if the politicians ever figure out how to describe to the 80-year-old voting demographic, is certainly on the agenda.  The only thing I can wish for is that the wheels of progress and essential liberty do not come to a halt based on the whims of leaders who do not understand the volatile nature of all things digital.