Dear Next President,

Look around you. I guarantee that you will see some form of technology if it be a phone, television or computer. As our technology improves and we become more dependent on said technology, we increase the chance of being hacked. How can we stop these cyber crimes? By having more people trained in the field of programming.

According to professor Lara Thompson, “ ... cyber crimes are simply crimes that are facilitated by the Internet, or use computers to store illegal data.” These so called “Cyber crimes” can lead to secret information being exploited on to the web. Most of the powerful nations such as the United States, Russia, and China are already in the middle of a cyber-war where every nation is trying to get classified information from each other. Many people are at risk of being caught in the cross fire from other nations and could lose money, have their businesses’ ruined, and affect the economy in a bad way. In fact, it can be so serious to the point of nuclear launch codes being shown. Just that alone could lead to a huge advantage for enemy countries.

If we want to defend our country, we should open facilities and increase the amount of courses where people or students can learn how to program or improve their skill in the field. This can help the students whom entered these programs or facilities by providing a useful skill, a degree, and a high salary due to the need of programmers. I also encourage you to increase the spending of cyber security to increase our defense. Also, having people with the knowledge to program can strengthen our side in the cyber war and improve the technology we use.

Of course, having many people with the knowledge to hack and program can actually increase the risk of hacking. Some people might believe that the ones who were supposed to help are threats. So why not be a Luddite? Because there are more people who would do the right thing for our country than the small percentage that would do the wrong thing.

Next president, I suggest that you make facilities and more courses to teach and inform people how to program. It’s time to use our technology without there being a risk of outside hackers. This would help now and well into the future.

Thank you for your consideration,

Titus L.