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News and images move so easily across borders that attitudes and aspirations are no longer especially national. Cyber-weapons, no longer the exclusive province of national governments, can originate in a hacker's garage.

In cyberspace, it is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold security for one's own country by sacrificing that of others.

Computers can bully us. A slow and unreliable system will bring even the toughest soul to their knees as they find themselves completely defenseless against the erratic whims of their rogue machine.

Clear limits should be set on how power is exercised in cyberspace by companies as well as governments through the democratic political process and enforced through law.

Our information network is much better protected than our railroad network, and someone who cracks a system is able to cause far less human damage than someone who derails a train. Why, then, has 'computer crime' caused so much hysteria? Perhaps because the public is so willing - eager, even - to be scared by bogeymen.

We demand privacy, yet we glorify those that break into computers.

Should we fear hackers? Intention is at the heart of this discussion.

Today, computers are almost second nature to most of us.

Companies spend millions of dollars on firewalls, encryption, and secure access devices and it's money wasted because none of these measures address the weakest link in the security chain: the people who use, administer, operate and account for computer systems that contain protected information.