U.K. Launches Driverless Car Campaign (PCMagazine)

• BY STEPHANIE MLOT
• JULY 30, 2014 

U.K. cities can throw their hat in the ring for a share of a £10 million contest to host the country's driverless cars trial.

The United Kingdom has given autonomous driving the green light, launching a new campaign that will see driverless cars on local roads within six months.

The government is calling on U.K. cities to join with businesses and research organizations to throw their hat into the ring for a share of a £10 million competition to host the country's driverless cars trial.

Available online, applications must be submitted by noon on Oct. 1. Up to three cities will be selected to host the trials, which begin in January. Each project is expected to last 18-36 months.

"The excellence of our scientists and engineers has established the U.K. as a pioneer in the development of driverless vehicles through pilot projects," U.K. Business Secretary Vince Cable said in a statement. "Today's announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than [six] months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society."

Two areas of independent driving technology will be covered in the review: cars with a qualified driver who can take over control of the driverless car, and fully autonomous vehicles without anyone behind the wheel.

"Driverless cars have huge potential to transform the U.K.'s transport network—they could improve safety, reduce congestion, and lower emissions, particularly CO2. We are determined to ensure driverless cars can fulfil this potential," Transport Minister Claire Perry said. "Which is why we are actively reviewing regulatory obstacles to create the framework for trialling these vehicles on British roads."

The U.K. began testing driverless cars on public roads late last year, but this marks the first time the British government is turning to its constituents for help. The project is being funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the Department for Transport, in partnership with the Technology Strategy Board.

Project candidates must be business-led and need to demonstrate close collaboration with partners like tech developers, supply chain companies, and manufacturers.

"Britain is brilliantly placed to lead the world in driverless technology. It combines our strengths in cars, satellites, big data and urban design," Science Minister Greg Clark said, tipping "huge potential benefits" for the job market and consumers.

Not everyone is thrilled about the expected surge of self-driving vehicles. According to a recently released FBI report, the bureau fears such cars could act as "lethal weapons," potentially allowing criminals to "conduct tasks that require use of both hands," like shooting at pursuers while the vehicle drives itself away from a crime scene.

Those reservations haven't stopped Audi's driverless cars from hitting the road. The car maker this week closed down a Tampa highway to test its autonomous Audi A7, equipped with an array of sensors and cameras to handle driving on freeway conditions up to 40 mph.

Stephanie began as a PCMag reporter in May 2012. She moved to New York City from Frederick, Md., where she worked for four years as a multimedia reporter at the second-largest daily newspaper in Maryland. She interned at Baltimore magazine and graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (in the town of Indiana, in the state of Pennsylvania) with a degree in journalism and mass communications

The main reasons people hate Google Glass, and why they won't in a few years (TechRepublic)

By Conner Forrest July 30, 2014,

With hoards of both supporters and detractors, few modern gadgets have been as polarizing as Google Glass. Here's why the anti-Glass sentiment is destined to dissipate. 

Some people just hate Google Glass. Well, according to research firm Toluna, the majority of people hate Google Glass -- 72% to be exact.

Google announced the prototype "Explorer" edition of the wearable at their I/O developer conference in 2012. While the device was initially met with a sense to technological wonder, much of the general consensus quickly devolved into mockery for the device for a variety of reasons. This left only the die-hards to defend the device. And, they aren't doing a very good job.

Organizations such as Stop the Cyborgs are speaking out against Glass and other wearables. According to the Stop the Cyborgs website, "The aim of the movement is to stop a future in which privacy is impossible and where the iron cage of surveillance, calculation and control pervades every aspect of life."

The media has taken its shots too. In June 2014, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart took to deriding Glass "explorers," further adding to the negative stereotypes associated with "glassholes." This came after Google released a blog post of dos and don'ts for explorers to help prepare explorers to be better stewards of the technology.

Still, some companies are pushing forward with Glass for work programs, as the stalwarts stand strong. So, why is it so hard to think about Google Glass? Glass is still so new and, as a society, we haven't been able to fully think through all of the implications for its use.

Once we are able to fully process the use of Glass, and other wearables, the use of such technology in public will become a non-issue. Here are the main concerns for the use of Google Glass and why they won't matter in a few years.

The tech divide

To some, wearing Glass is a pretentious display of differentiation that comprises two different aspects of exclusion. The first being the fact that wearers are in the know about the technology and are among the "chosen few" who have been given the chance to purchase one.

"Google Glass is a symbol that says: 'I am living in the future and you are not.' Much the same way pulling out an iPhone around all your Blackberry-toting friends was in 2007. But in the case of Google, the headsets also say, 'And Google has recruited me to spy on you.' Google already watches us and knows millions of things about us and most people tolerate it just fine. But put an arrogant-seeming headset on an edgier-than-thou Silicon Valley resident and people's resistance to Google as an entity suddenly boils over..." McQuivey said.

McQuivey went on to explain that this is why many of the bans on Glass are happening in Silicon Valley, due to the pressure of Google's presence in that area. Of course, the exclusivity of Glass is waning since Google opened it up to the public in May, but there is still the barrier of price.

"In wearing Google Glass you are demonstrating some things," McIntyre said. "One is that you have $1500 to spend on a techno gadget. So, it's conspicuously displaying your disposable income. And then, if you have [Glass], it shows that you have access to information and to services that, perhaps, nobody else has."

Of course, we shouldn't expect the price of Glass to remain that high. Other wearable glasses are exploding on crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, with prices as low as a few hundred dollars. Google will inevitably lower the price on the device and, if they can get it to a price threshold that is acceptable to the average consumer, they will see a huge spike in adoption of the product.

SEE: Google Glass Policy (Tech Pro Research)

Privacy

The perceived invasion of privacy is the biggest issue for the potential adoption of Glass. The ability of the device to record video and take pictures is the premier reason it is being rallied against. It is also the reason it has been banned by many restaurants and bars, big companies such as USAA, and even for parts of events such as the San Diego Comic-Con.

"Since many of our programs feature exclusive or special video presentations specifically for Comic-Con attendees, we do not allow recording of that footage by any device," said David Glanzer, the director of marketing and public relations for Comic-Con. "Because of the ability of this device to record, Google Glasses cannot be worn during footage viewing in any program room. "

The banning of any recording device from a presentation that includes sensitive material makes sense, but public dissenters often use this as a jumping off point for why they believe the device should be banned more widely or, at least, heavily legislated. The interesting thing is that wearable camera technology has been around for years, often in even more discreet designs. Even more relevant, however, is that many similar concerns were raised when smartphones first debuted with cameras on them in the early 2000s.

"We do have cameras on our smartphones and people have gotten used to that," said Angela McIntyre, an analyst at Gartner. "But, I remember when the smartphone camera first came out there was push back from gyms, for example, about having to ban smartphones with cameras because people would take pictures in locker rooms."

Most smartphones have better recording and sharing capabilities than Glass does, and they are almost ubiquitously accepted in public areas, at least in the US. While it is legal to photograph or record images in public places almost everywhere in the US, the issue is bigger than just the right to record. According to Forrester's James McQuivey, it's about coming to terms with the intrusion that technology plays in our lives.

"It's true that a proudly worn Google Glass headset is a very clear intrusion into the lives of the people around the Google Glass user. But it's an intrusion that exists on many levels at once. Sure, the device has a camera in it, and rudely used, that camera can violate people's expectation of privacy. But if we stop there we're really missing the bigger point. A Glass headset is a camera but it is also a symbol of certain things that some people are not going to be comfortable with, at least not until they are worn down by repeated exposure and come to gradually ignore and eventually accept the intrusion."

The issue many people have with Google Glass is the potential it carries to desensitize people to the process of recording. The Stop the Cyborgs' website puts it like this: "...wearable devices socially normalise ubiquitous surveillance. That is they create a society where we expect to be recorded, where every moment to is shared, documented and data-mined. "

However, camera-equipped smartphones and the rise of YouTube -- and now Vine -- present the exact same potential for surveillance, without the confrontation of a device worn on the face. There are a plethora of videos online, taken with a smartphone, that showcase the drunken antics of a specific party goer; many with millions of views. Additionally, many major cities in the world operate street cameras that capture the daily lives of citizens without their knowledge or consent.

The world got used to cell phone cameras and the world got used to city surveillance, and the world will eventually get used to seeing cameras on people's faces. Google Glass confronts people with a reality they don't want to acknowledge: our lives are being recorded everyday whether we like it or not, and many of us don't know what we can do to stop it.

Misconceptions

Much like many of the other "moonshot" products coming from Google, Glass has struggled to define use cases that would make it a valuable tool for consumers. According to McIntyre, this is due mostly to the fact that many consumers do not fully understand what the device is capable of.

"Most people still are not that familiar with what Google Glass can actually do, and have a difficult time understanding what value it would bring to them to purchase one. I believe that's more of the issue than the privacy," McIntyre said.

New technology, especially technology that works in the foreground of everyday life, is almost always met with resistance. McQuivey said that this temporary tension will eventually wear away, but it will take repeated exposure to the technology and some work by Google on the marketing and features of the product to make that happen.

"This is the same temporary furor that storms into being every time a company makes a step forward in technology -- people immediately jump to emotional conclusions unsupported by the actual details of the technology but more linked to people's deep-seated sense of the world in which they live or wish they lived in," McQuivey said. "This was true of surveillance cameras, the VCR, webcams, and a host of other technologies from the assembly line robot to the construction of railroads."

It will take time, but the public will eventually find a way to work products like Glass into everyday life. There will still be opponents, much like there are still opponents to technologies such as smartphones, but Google Glass, and wearables like it, will eventually be folded into the social norms of everyday life. There's no way to know exactly what that will look like, or how we will chose to acknowledge the technology in certain social interactions, but Google and other wearable computing makers will have to play the long game and wait it out.

"In the meantime, Google has actually done itself a favor by forcing the development of this etiquette in a market that is going to take several years to mature anyway," McQuivey said. "As long as it's comfortable being the bad guy in the meantime. Very much the same thing that the company has been doing with driverless cars or Amazon has been doing with drones. Get the idea out there early, let people fret and worry about it while it's not a technically feasible thing anyway, then, once people have gotten over it, move in for the real power play."

Conner Forrest is a Staff Writer for TechRepublic. He covers Google and startups and is passionate about the convergence of technology and culture.

Automated Audi Cruises Down Florida Highway (PCMagazine)

• BY ANGELA MOSCARITOLO
• JULY 28, 2014 

The car maker closed down a Florida highway on Sunday and Monday to test out a driverless car.

Move over, Florida highway drivers. Audi's self-driving car is coming through.

The car maker closed down a Tampa, Florida highway on Sunday and Monday to test out a driverless car in an effort to show that the technology will soon be ready for the real world. 

The company demonstrated its driverless technology in an Audi A7 equipped with an array of sensors and cameras to handle driving functions on freeway conditions up to 40 miles per hour. The technology allows the car to start and stop on its own and avoid other vehicles in front and to the sides.

The test did not, however, go off without a hitch. Twice the car stopped and had to be fixed because one of the sensors wasn't communicating with the central computer, according to the Tampa Bay Tribune. Despite the glitch, Audi believes this technology will be available to consumers within five years.

Audi is now the first carmaker to test a highly automated car on the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway in Tampa, which was recently designated as an automated driving and connected car test bed, just one of 10 in the U.S. The move comes after Florida Gov. Rick Scott back in 2012 signed into law HB 1207, which allows the testing of autonomous vehicles in the state.

The test was also a first step towards fully automatic, driverless cars, which could be available within the next two decades, Filip Brabec, director of product management with Audi of America, told the Tampa Bay Tribune. Audi officials picked Tampa to see how the system works in extreme heat.

"The ability to conduct research in the real-world conditions offered by Florida and the Expressway Authority is crucial to pre-production development," Audi said in astatement. "Because Florida created an environment that allows for the testing and development of autonomous technology, companies such as Audi have decided to bring research and development efforts to the Sunshine State."

The test comes after Audi first showed off its self-driving A7 during a flashy pre-show keynote at CES in January.

Besides Audi, a number of other companies have autonomous vehicles in the works, including Nissan, Mercedes, Toyota, and Google. The FBI believes that autonomous cars could be approved by Congress for use in the U.S. within five to seven years, but worries they could be used as lethal weapons if they fall into the wrong hands.

For more, check out PCMag's test drive in Volvo's self-driving car. Also see Are You Ready to Give Your Keys to a Self-Driving Car?

Angela has been a PCMag reporter since January 2012. Prior to joining the team, she worked as a reporter for SC Magazine, covering everything related to hackers and computer security. Angela has also written for The Northern Valley Suburbanite in New Jersey, The Dominion Post in West Virginia, and the Uniontown-Herald Standard in Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of West Virginia University's Perely Isaac Reed School of Journalism

Criminals Build Web Server-Powered Botnet To Steal Passwords (Cruxial)

By Antone Gonsalves | July 18, 2014

Russian researchers have found a new type of malware that takes control of Linux- and FreeBSD-based Web servers to form a powerful network for launching password-stealing attacks.

The researchers at Web provider Yandex call the malware Mayhem and say it is capable of compromising systems configured to restrict access to only select administrators, a security measure commonly used to protect servers.

A total of 1,400 servers have been compromised to date with most of them in the United States, Russia, Germany and Canada.

The paper on Mayhem was published July 17 by Virus Bulletin, a specialist security publication. The researchers are Andrej Kovalev, Konstantin Ostrashkevich and Evgeny Sidorov.

What to Do:Keep server operating systems up to date to patch all known vulnerabilities. Enforce the use of strong passwords by employees accessing corporate networks.

The initial stage of the malware infection is the execution of hypertext preprocessor (PHP) script. PHP is a server-side scripting language designed for web development.

In 2013, PHP was used on 244 million sites, according to Internet services company Netcraft. Roughly 80 percent of the sites were powered by Linux servers and almost 10 percent FreeBSD.

Once a server is compromised, Mayhem calls to a command-and-control server and downloads additional code. The purpose of the malware can vary.

One function is to look for websites with known vulnerabilities in order to extract information from pages.

The hackers also use the compromised servers for so-called brute-force attacks against sites based on WordPress and Joomla content management systems. Such an attack involves continuously trying password combinations in hopes of striking the actual credential.

The attacks are particularly useful against people who use easy-to-guess passwords. The most commonly used password on the Web in 2013 was "123456," followed by "password" and "12345678," according tothe latest annual report by SplashData, a maker of password management applications.

The researchers said Mayhem was the continuation of a bigger brute-force campaign called Fort Disco.

In 2013, security vendor Arbor Networks reported that the attackers behind the malware had built a botnet comprising 25,000 compromised Windows computers. The criminals had hacked the passwords of thousands of Joomla-, WordPress and Datalife Engine-based sites.

The researchers in the latest campaign warned that servers powered by Unix-based operating systems, such as Linux and FreeBSD, often contain known vulnerabilities.

This is due to the "vast majority" of webmasters and system administrators having to refresh software manually and testing whether the update works properly.

"For ordinary websites, serious maintenance is quite expensive and often webmasters don’t have an opportunity to do it," the researchers said. "This means it is easy for hackers to find vulnerable web servers and to use such servers in their botnets."

Rupert Murdoch Tries to Swallow Time Warner (BusinessWeek)

By Felix Gillette  July 16, 2014

A new theory to explain why Rupert Murdoch has been so quiet on Twitter (TWTR)of late: He’s been pursuing the deal of a lifetime—again.

Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox (FOXA) made an $80 billion offer in recent weeks to take over Time Warner (TWX), according to a report in the The New York Times. Time Warner rejected the offer. Bloomberg News cited people familiar with the deal in a report that suggested 21st Century Fox would be willing to pay more than $85 per share in the merger—an offer that would exceed $75 billion.

VIDEO: Fox-TWX Deal: What Companies Are Impacted?

Murdoch’s company confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that its formal merger proposal had been rejected. “We are not currently in any discussions with Time Warner,” the statement said. Rumors of the potential deal have been circulating for weeks.

History has shown that once Murdoch locks in on an acquisition target, little can be done to dampen his ardor; just ask the Bancrofts, former owners of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal.With news of the offer now public, expect pressure on Time Warner to ratchet up in the coming days and weeks. Shares of Time Warner soared on the news, trading more than 18 percent higher in mid-morning.

Since February, when Comcast (CMCSA) announced  its agreement to buy Time Warner Cable, industry analysts have predicted that  consolidation among cable and satellite distributors would spur deals among major cable and satellite content providers. The year in media mergers and acquisitions has also seen AT&T (T)move to buy DirecTV (DTV) in May.

If consummated, a deal to combine 21st Century Fox and Time Warner would create a sports, movie, and entertainment colossus with $65 billion in annual revenue. The programming behemoth formed by such a merger would have great leverage to negotiate deals with the consolidated pay-TV distributors.

STORY: Buying Time Warner to Get HBO's Money-Making Machine

Both 21st Century Fox and Time Warner delighted investors recently by spinning off their troubled print-media divisions. Time Warner’s current pay-TV assets include a range of lucrative networks such as TNT, TBS, truTV, CNN, Cartoon Network, and HBO. The counterparts at 21st Century Fox range from FX and Fox News to Fox Sports 1 and the FOX broadcast network. Each company also operates a major Hollywood studio—Warner Bros. and 2oth Century Fox—and owns various rights to major live sporting events.

One potential snag is that in recent years there has been much animosity between cable news rivals CNN and Fox News. Combining the major cable news outlets under Murdoch would probably incite protests from a range of public interest groups. Today’s article in the Times suggests that if the deal gets done, Murdoch would sell off CNN to appease regulators.

Some industry analysts are already casting doubt on the notion that gobbling up more market share via consolidation will provide many real benefits for major pay-TV content providers. “With multiple large distribution mergers in process or expected and the historical ‘lock-step’ nature of content and distribution consolidation, it comes as no surprise that the content/programmer M&A question has risen up again,” Richard Greenfield of BTIG wrote recently. “Our gut is that well-positioned media companies should resist the urge to merge simply to increase scale (ignore your investment bankers).”

STORY: What the Fox-Time Warner Merger Would Mean for Superheroes

None of which is likely to slow Murdoch. The 83-year-old media mogul has managed to get through an embarrassing public divorce, a prolonged hacking trialin London, and a significant health scare in recent month. The ultimate mediasurvivor has survived yet again.

Now he moves to make a further conquest. Onward, to Time Warner.

Gillette is a staff writer for Bloomberg Businessweek in New York.

id this SAP big data software really help Germany win the World Cup? (TechRepublic)

By Toby Wolpe, July 18, 2014,

Andre Schürrle's cross and Mario Götze's chest and volley may have won the World Cup for Germany in extra time but enterprise software giant SAP is claiming a hand in the victory.

Its Match Insights software, which employs SAP HANA in-memory computing, was originally taken up by Bundesliga side 1899 TSG Hoffenheim, which is about 20km from SAP's Walldorf headquarters near Heidelberg, south-west Germany.

In October last year, SAP and the German football association - or Deutsche Fußball-Bund - started collaborating on adapting the software for the German national team for final preparations for the World Cup and during the tournament itself. A prototype was delivered in March.

The images shown here is taken from the software running analytics on the November warm-up game against Italy. The white lines across the German backline and forwards show the operator in this case is studying playing formations and the relative position of players in these units.

In practice games, players can wear wireless sensors from partner company Amisco to relay geospatial and performance data but in real matches those digital tags are not permitted for safety reasons and because coaches are barred from using in-game technological aids.

According to SAP head of discrete manufacturing industries Nils Herzberg, the technology is not just for coaches. It can also be used by players to analyse their own performances.

"It is more for training but also for post mortems. Well, in the case of Germany there wasn't one. Everyone else could have done with one," Herzberg said.

The technology could also be used one day in other fields, such as in military exercises, for example.

"You could actually use it for the training of soldiers for special missions, if you want to make sure certain instructions and behaviours are followed," Herzberg said.

Toby Wolpe is a senior reporter at TechRepublic in London. He started in technology journalism when the Apple II was state of the art.

College Graduates Don't Always Out-Earn High School Grads (BusinessWeek)

By Allison Schrager July 15, 2014

One of the biggest arguments in favor of a college education is that college grads make more money than do those with only a high-school diploma or a few years of college. The difference in earning power over a lifetime—the college wage premium—has been well-documented: One of the most popular recent sources, a paper by Christopher Avery and Sarah Turner, estimated the gap at more than $500,000, on average.

Those last two words are more important than anyone gives them credit for. Focusing on the average college wage premium puts the emphasis on the expected gains from education, which is not a bad thing if you’re trying to persuade lots of people to go to college. But it’s only part of the story. College tuition is expensive, and plenty of students take on tens of thousands of dollars of debt in pursuit of that wage premium—when what matters just as much is how risky it is relative to other ways they might spend their money or time.

When we look at distribution of the college wage premium—how much more the lowest-, middle-, and highest-earning quartiles make relative to high-school grads, the picture of risk becomes clearer. At every level short of graduate school, there’s a not-insignificant chance that a successful high-school graduate will out-earn you. The chances are greatest for college dropouts—the people who spend some time and money but don’t walk away with a degree.

STORY: Undergrad Business Majors Don't Get the Career Payback Math Majors Do

To consider risk, I used the 2013 Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census, which asks detailed questions about employment and earnings. As Avery and Turner did, I took the present discounted value of lifetime earnings, but I included non-students from age 18 to age 65. (Avery and Turner assume that everyone works for 42 years.) I hoped to capture the additional income gained from forgoing college. I also included part-time workers to capture income risk.

The figure below gives the 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile of expected lifetime earnings for different education groups, starting at age 18 and proceeding to age 65.

I found a $225,000 premium, less than half what Avery and Turner found, partly because I included part-time workers, combined men and women, and granted high school graduates additional working years. The biggest risk of going to college is dropping out: An unfinished degree barely increases your earnings while costing money and time. Vocational two-year degrees  have a stronger positive effect on earning power than academic ones do. (Insert English major joke here.)

STORY: Let's Start Telling Young People the Whole Truth About College

Education traditionally suggests more security, a lower risk of unemployment, and more stable wages. The figure below shows whether, if you go to college, you will always be paid more than the typical high school graduate.

On average, college pays off, though not always. The wage premium comes with risk. For every degree short of a graduate degree, there’s a decent chance that a good high school graduate will out-earn you. The risk-adjusted premium of college needs to be weighed against the cost of tuition (PDF): In 2010, public, full-time community college tuition cost more than $10,000 a year; undergrad full-time tuition cost $16,000 at public universities and $37,000 at private schools.

None of this suggests that motivated students shouldn’t go to college, especially if they’re committed to finishing. A degree is still a good bet and technology rewards education more than ever. (The data here are based on earnings for current workers of all ages; they don’t capture the increasing returns to education expected in the future.) The data also don’t capture a further benefit to education: It helps people stay employed, at whatever wage range. The unemployment rate for high-school graduates is 7.5 percent, almost double the 4 percent rate among people with a B.A.

STORY: Jobs Are Still Scarce for New Law School Grads

Allison Schrager is an economist and writer in New York City. Follow her on Twitter: @AllisonSchrager.

From the Cold War to the Code War (ZDNet)

UK boosts spending on cyber warfare

Summary: We don't need more tanks, we need the latest in cyber warfare, says UK PM David Cameron.

By Steve Ranger | July 14, 2014

UK prime minister David Cameron said that £800m would be spent on intelligence and surveillance equipment. Image: Frederic Legrand / Shutterstock.com

The UK is upping its spending on cyber defence as a report warns that the country's increasing reliance on a connected infrastructure could create new opportunities for criminals and terrorists.

Prime minister David Cameron said that £800m will be spent on intelligence and surveillance equipment, which he said "includes the latest in cyber defence technology". The Ministry of Defence (MoD) was unable to provide any breakdown of the spending or detail what projects this would include.

Cameron said: "We are equipping our armed forces for the conflicts of this century, not the last. The threats we face have changed utterly in 30 years — from the clarity of the Cold War to the complex and shifting challenges of today: global terrorism, organised crime, hostage taking, the risk of nuclear proliferation, cyber attack, energy security.

"It is not massed tanks on the European mainland we need, but the latest in cyber warfare, unmanned aircraft technology and special forces capability... in the 21st century, you cannot defend the realm from the white cliffs of Dover."

Read this

U.K. center to be global cybersecurity hub

• Read more

The UK's National Security Strategy lists cyber attacks as a 'tier one' threat to national security, alongside international terrorism and warns the threat from cyber attacks "is real and growing".

In addition, the newly published Global Strategic Trends report by the MoD's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre sets the context for defence and security out as far as 2045, and warns: "As more of our work and social activities depend on a richly interconnected information and communications network (which may, in places, be extremely vulnerable to attack) there could be more opportunities for criminals and terrorists to have a greater impact on our day-to-day lives."

But, unsurprisingly, it's hard to work out how much the government is already spending on cyber defence projects. The Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010 allocated £650m over four years for a national cyber security programme, with another £210m added after the 2013 spending review for 2015-16.

On the cyber-offensive side, defence secretary Philip Hammond told the Conservative party conference last year: "Simply building cyber defences is not enough. As in other domains, we also have to deter... Britain will build a dedicated capability to counter-attack in cyber-space and, if necessary, to strike in cyber space as part of our full-spectrum military capability."

Spending on this project could reach £500m over the next few years, according to one report. On top of this, other agencies such as GCHQ are also involved with cyber warfare projects.

Steve Ranger is the UK editor-in-chief of ZDNet and TechRepublic, and has been writing about technology, business and culture for more than a decade. Previously he was the editor of silicon.com.