Wiring the World !

That old adage that a " chain is only as strong as its weakest link " applies to the 5G communications network which will become reality across the world later this year.  It is the inevitable advance of personal communication systems linked to the internet that arrived scores of years ago with a handset about the size of a brick.  5G promises an interconnected  world which will deliver marvels way beyond the realm of human imagination.

Britain's prime minister, Boris Johnston has just caved in to pressure from China and announced that he will allow Huawei to supply component parts for Britain's 5G network.  This breaks a world consensus aimed at keeping this Chinese technology giant from slipping backdoor entry points into the system that will allow China's homeland security services to eavesdrop on personal conversations and steal sensitive trade secrets from commercial traffic.

Johnston dismisses this concern when he claims that Huawei will only be allowed to supply perimeter equipment which is separated from the core.  Across the world the leading operators of 5G services are implacable that the core and radio services are so integrated that they can not be separated.  This British decision is putting 5G at risk of being rejected as the communication channel between the " Five Eyes " intelligence network shared between the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.  These countries would not transmit information that might be intercepted by China.

The Communist system of government in China is closely linked to industry and it is known that Huawei is integrated with Chinese state security.  Inviting Huawei into supplying 5G components would be similar to allowing the KGB  to run the world telephone network back in the days of the cold war.

There is the expectation that when 5G goes into full operation the relentless advance of computers running essential services will achieve even more power and disruption as a war weapon would be completely devastating.  Even now, a communication break shuts down the banking system, brings the supply of electric power to a standstill with the trains and trams no longer moving people and the petrol stations unable to provide petrol for car transport.  Australia - and the world - would grind to a halt if the computer network stopped working.

The ability of the computer will be further advanced by the 5G system and it is inevitable that human minds will apply it to more functions in the interests of efficiency and cost saving.  Our biggest fear has been a nuclear war that takes civilization back to the stone age.  Perhaps our growing reliance on the computer and the system that links them to our everyday living world is capable of delivering a similar event if it is open to sabotage.

Perhaps we are just too far along the way to a wired world to turn back.   Just like that nuclear bomb  ensuring the inability to wage war, perhaps the ability of the west to close down the entire 5G system might be sufficient to convince the Chinese to play by the rules.   In an interconnected world there can be no winners.  Perhaps the computer has replaced the atom bomb as the primary threat to the human species !