Reading about the latest hack to hit the banking community got me to thinking about my journey with computers etc. Having always had an enthusiasm for tinkering with gadgets – sometimes with disastrous results but thankfully nothing serious – I thought back to the dear old £99 spectrum that was my first intro into the as then almost secretive world of computing. I still remember that flush of excitement as I unpacked all the bits and pieces and got out the twenty pages of instructions (something you rarely get today) and began the task of assembly. As I recall it had a separate tape machine that you had to load things on then transfer to the main machine and there was a long slot in the back that took solid state game consoles. Since those heady days I have gradually progressed through a series of different computers and now spend most of my on line time on an I pad although I do occasionally make use of a Toshiba laptop – albeit a little past it now but still struggling gamely on. (Bit like the owner). Getting back to why I put this post up. As I said I was reading about the latest hacking and I really cannot understand why a school kid in his bedroom can cause such havoc and potentially shut down systems which have to all intents and purposes been set up by the so called experts. If it is that easy for a system to be hacked one must wonder why it cannot be that easy to prevent it, and are any of these anti this and that protection systems really as good as they say. Perhaps it could be said that maybe we have gone to far to fast in the pursuit of ever supposedly ways to make life easier and less stressful. As far as I am concerned the modern computers and the internet are a miracle of technology but at the same time could present us with a perhaps more serious problem in the not to distant future when you consider the massive amount of information you can get hold of if you are tech savvy. We are no doubt almost entirely reliant on computers for our every day needs and we can only hope that somewhere down the line someone is keeping an eye on things, especially in those areas where power and supplies and the military are concerned.