John Dix

If nothing else, the now disputed "hacking" of an Illinois water utility has brought the spotlight back to shine on the vulnerability of our national infrastructure.

This subject goes in and out of vogue in various government circles, yet we still seem to be treading water, waiting for a real attack to make us serious about addressing the threat.

Sprint last week filed suit against AT&T in an attempt to block that company's $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA, a cause that looks good on paper but is at odds with consumer demand for improved mobile experiences.

In its suit Sprint said the AT&T acquisition would hurt consumer and corporate customers by leading to higher prices and curtailing innovation, echoing charges levied in the antitrust lawsuit filed last month by the Justice Department.

Like it or not, the arrival of cloud means IT isn't the only game in town anymore. It is increasingly easy for corporate denizens to simply bypass IT to get what they want. The deceit? They simply don't tell you about the services acquired.

Some 60% of 573 executives in a recent survey by business technology service provider Avanade say they worry about so-called cloud sprawl, the unauthorized acquisition of cloud services. Heck, 1 in 5 of this same group say they have "purchased a cloud service without the IT department's knowledge." No wonder they're worried.

The Pentagon is expected to announce a cyberstrategy this month that concludes a cyberattack on the U.S. can be an act of war, and while the damage from such an assault may warrant that position, hopefully this just amounts to loud barking given the perils involved.

The Wall Street Journal says the Pentagon's 30-page document (18 pages of which are classified) broaches the idea of the U.S. using military force to respond to a nation-backed cyberattack. The gist: If an attack caused significant damage to our economy, infrastructure or people, the U.S. could respond with an equivalent amount of military force.

Roger Sessions, CTO of ObjectWatch and an expert in software architecture, argues that the increasing complexity of our IT systems will be our undoing. In fact, he just recently got a patent for a methodology that helps deal with complex IT systems. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix recently caught up with Sessions to get his take on the extent of the problem and possible solutions.

The 10 dumbest mistakes network managers make

While the Apple iPad and other emerging tablets may ultimately shift the playing field, netbooks from the big corporate suppliers offer an interesting mobile alternative to big, bulky laptops.

Don't confuse these solidly-built machines loaded with helpful tools for the mobile professional with the cheap, plastic consumer netbooks you find at Best Buy and other outlets. (See also "How to Buy a Netbook.")

While Verizon expected the BlackBerry Storm to be a hot-ticket item, it probably didn't anticipate that demand for the device would crash its online ordering portal.

But on Friday afternoon, Verizon stores were unable to process any more orders for the Storm, because high traffic apparently had overloaded the system with ordering requests. A representative at the Verizon Wireless store in Framingham, Mass., said that the outage hit his branch at around 3 p.m. on Friday, with service returning one hour later.