There has been a lot of news lately about piracy and hacking—including the ongoing saga of Terry Childs, the nutcase who hijacked San Francisco's computer network, the trouble with e-passports, California's vulnerable Fastrack toll system, and Brazilian software pirates. But this is nothing new. We are always hearing about the next "unhackable" system only to point and laugh when some 13-year-old takes it out 24 hours after launch. It's not like companies will stop trying to keep hackers out, but are their efforts futile? In other words, is a truly unhackable system nothing more than a pipe dream?

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