I seldom have a solid few minutes to myself these days to ruminate on the ills of the world. I managed to string together a thought that has been eating away at my frontal lobe.
Let me start by pointing out that after the fall of communism in Russia there was a glut of talented computer programmers and IT folks in general that had no way to make a buck and no way to put food on the table. Over time a lot of them managed to find work of some description but, a large swath found themselves being put to work in the binary mines for the mob. Almost overnight we saw a malware enterprise spring up that was profitable and continues to be. Sure, there are busts of the occasional high profile ne’er do well that make the front pages. A token gesture. This pales in comparison to the depth of the problem. As I spin the wheel of analogies I land on “tip of the iceberg”.
Now, taking into account the historic model of Russia we see the economic vomit inducing roller coaster ride that we have today. Dissimilar? Not really. Both were/are failing economies. Some examples of companies that are laying off staff are IBM (16,000), Microsoft (6,000), Intel (5,000), AMD (1,100), Sun (1,300), Sprint (8,000) and Motorola (4,000).
These are only some of the examples. Hell, just this morning Caterpillar announced 20,000 layoffs. Albeit not a tech outfit per se but, would it not be safe to assume that maybe, just maybe, history is about to repeat itself?
There are a lot of well qualified tech people out there looking for work. There are foreclosures everywhere. People have to eat. People need shelter. Are they all going to work for Home Depot? Nope. They just announced that they are going to let go of 7,000 employees. How long until the US emerges as the new clearing house for its very own MPack? Have we managed via this economic meltdown to spawn a digital Capone?
Yes, this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. Or, has it already begun? What’s your take on this?
if you consider crime as a social adaptation to an imbalance between expected rewards and opportunities to obtain those rewards, then yes certainly the overall decrease in traditional opportunities will increase the rate of this form of adaptation as well as other forms…
will it produce a criminal mastermind? the highly intelligent are already predisposed to violating the mores and norms of conventional society, so an extra little push certainly could hurt…
interesting take, dave.
just as interesting (imho) is that technology and the wondrous interweb make fertile ground for the diy, entrepreneurial type. capone was a brick-and-mortar criminal … profitable in his ability to out-muscle would-be competitors; at the same time, constrained by the limits of marshaling his band of merry thugs with personal, on-site visits.
in today’s “franklin covey was soooooo last century” world, uber-organized diy’ers do not have the constraints of marshaling thugs, needing little more than a laptop, a few scripts, and a pinch of midnight oil to assemble a small army’s worth of fire-power. add a little inside information and contempt for the conglomerates laying people off and you have the perfect mix of potentially criminal muscle and motivation … especially if infosec folks are some of those taking one for their (former) teams.
not only are there a lot of well qualified tech people out there looking for work; some of the most talented individuals don’t exactly fit the “company man/woman” profile and can be among the first to be let go. this can only amplify the likelihood that someone with under-valued, superior talent is left with a need to put food on the table and to validate themselves through the very skills that they feel were under-valued.
according to the us doj, 6.6% of americans will spend time in a prison within their lifetime. if that statistic holds true for tech people, then 2,732 out of the 41,400 layoffs cited in your post just may have just received a nudge in the wrong direction with little more than a kind word on their way out the door.
and as we all know …
… you can do more with a kind word and a keyboard than with just a kind word.
Is there any credible proof concerning:
“Let me start by pointing out that after the fall of communism in Russia there was a glut of talented computer programmers and IT folks in general that had no way to make a buck and no way to put food on the table. Over time a lot of them managed to find work of some description but, a large swath found themselves being put to work in the binary mines for the mob. Almost overnight we saw a malware enterprise spring up that was profitable and continues to be”
I’ve heard this bandied about before, but I’ve never seen any concrete evidence to support this.
It’s not just the US:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/world/asia/25china.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
And yes, you’re exactly spot on that a push in the wrong direction will tend to make a statistically small number cross the line from frustrated curiosity to desperate malice. Given the large pools we’re now dealing with, that same statistically small number translates into veritable hordes when viewed in comparison to previous years.
first of all I think a more appropriate description of ex USSR/CCCP’s system is “state capitalism”, same as China; just compeer definition of capitalism and state controlled economies that they had.
anyways I mean just to point out that if you’re a big corporation and have the money to legalise watch your doing (vide monopolies, pollution, just name it) than it’s business as usual and if your a small company and do same thing that advertising agencies do in our cities in another format you are a criminal, which seems quite typical for “neo-liberal capitalism” and in my opinion – capitalism in general. I’m not defending spamers – i’d be happy to have my way with them, but I can’t see a mayor difference between them and any other advertising agency. yet another part of capitalist world-system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-systems_approach ).
btw windows crashes routinely – people move to linux – capitalism crashes routinely – what will people move on to? :]