"They Swarm and Overwhelm."

Hackers recently gained access to computer systems used to design a new U.S. jet fighter. When I heard the news I remembered him. He told me about swarm and overwhelm tactics. Is that what the hackers are attempting to do?

He is an American. I sat next to him on a plane some time ago. He wanted to talk and I was content to listen. For more than 20 years he has worked for the same employer, a company based in Asia. He travels a great deal around the U.S. and the world. He talked about how his employer operates. The account was a bit chilling.

They swarm," he said. "The competition is simply overwhelmed. They push the envelope on everything relentlessly.

When fighting legal contests they bring in an army of lawyers, including specialists in every branch of the law that might conceivably apply to the case. They work 14 hours a day seven days a week to win.

"Even when they play golf," he said, "they shave strokes and look down on anyone who doesn't.

His employer has been rapidly buying U.S. businesses during the recession using these tactics. If a buyer doesn't want to sell, they find a way to force the sale.

In his travels he has learned a lot about the global competition U.S. companies face. He noted, for example, how Chinese companies systematically analyze products of U.S. manufacturers. Workers examine products piece by piece, then figure out how to improve and manufacture them at less cost.

Here in the U.S. he once watched two representatives of a Chinese factory, who had just purchased an expensive ($3,000+) bicycle, take it to their hotel room, disassemble it piece by piece and photograph each component. When finished they threw all the parts into a dumpster.

So, when the news reported how hackers had successfully invaded some U.S. defense systems, I wondered if there might be a connection between the hackers' actions and what my fellow traveller described.

I recently saw a television travel program in which the host knelt down on a dock along the Amazon River, a part of the river in which piranhas are particularly aggressive. He suspended a dead duck above the water and then lowered the carcass into the river and held it there for about 30 seconds. He brought it back to the surface for examination. I was amazed at how much flesh had been eaten in such a short period of time. The piranhas had swarmed and overwhelmed.

Is this what we're facing?