Back to the topic I started a few days back–there are some threats to information assurance that we do not cover on this weblog and wiki, because a) they are widely reported elsewhere and b) would have an impact on society as a whole that would equal or exceed the threat they pose to information assurance. A comet the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ego would have a huge… (say it with me)… impact… on information assurance issues for the UK government if it hit the planet Earth. But nobody would notice.

Other, perhaps more realistic threats that should fall outside of our purview include… your nominations in the comments, please. My nomination contains the seeds of what I fear is the greatest such threat–that demographic pressures and global economic conditions will force UK government to commit large scale resources to caring for the aged and infirm to such an extent that there will be no funding available for urgently needed IT programmes, even the programmes that would enable better and more cost-effective care for the aged and infirm.

Much as many climate change activists claim that this is the generation (and perhaps the last generation) that can do something realistic to cope with the effects of global warming, I think there is a case to be made that this generation may indeed have the resources available to prepare the information economy and ecology for future generations–and if this generation does not undertake this work, it will be nigh on impossible for the next one.