Conspiracy Hypothesis

If viruses can be developed for computer systems it stands to reason that IT viruses can also be developed for organisations.

Something developed and then released into the organisation, that corrupts the organisation from within.

And I’m not talking about corrupting the IT systems, I’m talking about corrupting the ethics of the place but using IT as the weapon.

An example; introducing spurious occupational health and safety regulatory forms that drive people mad, or formal facilitated systems for holding meetings, and onerous compliance systems for equality opportunities and minority rights, and so on.

These are all now driven by documents and forms and database systems. It wouldn’t be too hard to slip some more in, on the sly.

If the terrorists got it right they could ensure that the whole work force inside an organisation was completely tied up with random conformance, thus sending the place broke.

More insidious would be a level of introduced IT systems that stopped short of sending the business into liquidation but slowly sent all the people mad. Frogs in slowly boiling water.

Imagine if this was taking place on the quiet in every organisation in the country.

For a invading force this would be much cheaper than submarines and nuclear weapons. And a lot more fun.

By the time the invaders arrived we’d be begging them to take over if they promised a return to former days, before the CIO and VP, HR.

That’s all just wild dreaming of course. It’d never happen here.