Has the long-expected wave of cyber crime/warfare finally appeared?

Reports in CNET, The Economist, New York Times, and PC World point to a stunning lurch in the sophistication and reach of recent nefarious online attacks. And the initial sniff test pulls up a whiff of state or large-scale organization sponsorship and support of these events.

They may well be a bellwether of what to expect. These are likely not loosely aligned hackers, but outright strategic aggression designed to influence politics and the behaviors of nations and large corporations.

As many of these articles allude to, the attacks problem will not get any better until the basic architecture and governance of the Internet technologies themselves are addressed. Band-Aids on 1,000 cuts only propels the ongoing Spy vs. Spy gamesmanship -- only the stakes are fast escalating.

And so with that I dust off a sponsored conversation I had last year with Akamai Technologies co-founder and chief scientist, Professor Tom Leighton. In it he pretty much predicts -- nearly a year ago -- what we're now seeing. His prescriptions are not easy, but they increasingly seem necessary. Read the transcript, or listen to the podcast.

Disclosure: Akamai is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect B2B discussions on the Internet and society.