Having declared cyberwar on enemy states and terrorists, the United Kingdom is taking off on an unusual route in getting ready their new-generation James Bonds. These sleuths won’t be tuxedo-wearing action spies lolling between assignments on the beach with unbelievably beautiful, bikini-clad women.
They will be gawky members of GenY with acne on their faces but who are right up there with the best in their “Xbox” skills, working the social media with felicity, playing games on computers and having a maniacal obsession with toys.
A team of 100 youngsters will potentially help buttress the UK in the battle in cyberspace, in which there are no holds barred, as China and many other states hack into Western computer systems to steal defence and industrial secrets. The new spies will not be the traditional university types. They will feel at ease in front of banks of computers eavesdropping on the villains of the world with evil intentions of destroying whatever systems the peace-seeking parts of the world have set up.
The new hiring processes may change the old stereotypes of civil servants sitting in cabins and wondering what to do with threats to which they are unaccustomed. Such innovation may fetch results in cyberspace, which will increasingly belong to a generation familiar with gizmos and networking and staying connected with the emerging world. Sean Connery, the original Bond and a symbol of the old school of spying, may find all this somewhat confusing. Truth to tell, the world has changed and spymasters and spy systems should change, too.