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Cybersecurity — a great deal of the problem arises not by the 70,000 malicious attacks daily, but how we got to this point in the first place ("Warfare in the wires," article, Oct. 19).

Every single person, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Pvt. Joe Snuffy, believes he cannot exist without the Internet. In doing so, any office that deals with priority and critical information opens itself up to every hacker with a personal computer.

I have been in communications since 1977. Early on, we utilized "point to point" circuits. No hackers! There were hackers out there, but they had to find the communications wire that was among thousands of wires to tap into it.

Today, fiber optics is many times faster than copper and more secure. The minute you break it to tap into it, it sets off an alarm.

They also have devices that can put 48 data transmissions on one piece of glass the size of your hair. The fiber is in a bundle with up to 288 other fibers, giving thousands of possible data paths. If you send one bit down one fiber and another bit down another fiber, what do you think the chance is of some kid getting your secure data? If you encrypt it also, he might as well go back to playing "Pong."

The answer to cybersecurity is not more government control, but better use of available resources.

Richard MartinCamp Bucca, Iraq

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