Face it: The world is a hacker's playground.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Technology Tomorrow

* Reading the headlines lately is enough to make folks go to a used car lot and buy a 1999 Mazda Protege for their next "new" automobile.

Consumer Reports said the 1999 Protege had "all the verve of a BMW but at half the price," but that isn't the best reason to buy a 16-year-old car that has seen better days. All the junkers in used car lots don't have GPS-enabled devices, smart dashboards or any Internet connection to the outside world.

That may actually be an advantage over a 2016 model--the so-called "smartcars"--with all the bells and whistles that automobile manufacturers are falling all over themselves to introduce to consumers.

A Wired Magazine story in July where "good guy" hackers were able to track and then remotely take over a Jeep Cherokee from a laptop miles away made a huge splash. The harrowing story had a willing guinea pig drive down a busy city street while two researchers demonstrated how they could take over the car from the comfort of their own home.

The Internet was developed back in the 1970s without a thought for security. That's why we're in a mess today with almost daily stories about massive hacks.

And we haven't learned any lessons. Security experts continually say that computer-enabled systems need to be developed with security in mind from the get-go--built in from the ground up--but that isn't what's happening.

The researchers who hacked into the Jeep shared their discovery of the zero-day vulnerability--a previously unknown security hole in software--with the manufacturer. A couple days after the story appeared, Fiat Chrysler had to recall some 1.4 million models to put a patch on the software. Days later, GM had to patch its OnStar software after another researcher was able to remotely intercept messages and unlock the car. These were so-called white hat hackers--the good guys. Who will be the next to find new security holes?

Making less of a journalistic splash was a brief in the May issue of National Defense where University of Virginia researchers with funding from the Defense Department hacked into and took control of driverless vehicles. This is of great concern to the military as it plans to drive, fly and sail myriad robotic systems in the coming years.

Smartcars are just one example of the so-called Tnternet-of-things." Refrigerators, home security systems, baby monitors and thermostats are all becoming connected to the web. Along with the mini-computers everyone is carrying in their...