cyber war...might not kill but does it do as much damage?

i guess the digital isolation didn't last long after my last post, less than an hour to be exact.

that was when blaine turned the channel to a 60 minutes episode airing about network hackers and cyber war.

i have to admit, my interest was lacking and my skepticism was in overdrive, but i watched. and, to my surprise i learned some interesting, albeit terrifying, things about what hackers can do (and have done) to computer systems that basically control our continent.

learning about digital media takes on a completely different form when i think about hackers in this way. it's not just about them hacking my blog and taking my ideas, which is bad enough. it's not even just about them hacking my bank or a government website and stealing my identity, which is also chillingly scary.

it's about the ability to shut down the entire functional ability of a society with a few keystrokes. and that's something that i had not really ever considered. pandora's box? this could very much prove to be the case.

i have two questions that i'm putting out there. clearly there are much smarter people making the decisions than i am, so i don't want to appear to be a self-proclaimed expert...but i'm curious:

1. no one ever provided proof that the hackers were foreign, so why was it not clarified that these hackers have been proven not to be Americans (or Canadians, for that matter)? i don't necessarily doubt that they were foreign attacks, but found the evidence lacking, and the assumption not substantiated. it seemed like an easy jab to throw at the enemies of the west (i think russia and china in particular were mentioned)...

2. if there is a fear that a hacker could inadvertently detonate a nuclear weapon, then a) why don't we get rid of the wretched things altogether? (i know, i know...far too simplistic!) and b) can't you just unplug that computer from any kind of network??? i don't understand why a machine that has the capacity to wipe out humanity is networked, period. remotely detonatable, perhaps. networked, no.

it's almost like the way that communist states have been unable to replicate marxist utopia...digital media, while appearing to be utopic as well, have much more power to control and define our lives than i even realized.