Slashdot Mirror
E-terrorism, Bark or Bite?
packeteer writes: "Huge multi-part article on CNET news about electronic terrorism. The article has some interesting scenarios about posible types of attacks. It also has some good info about whats being done to prevent attacks as well as some info about media-hype that's put on 'hackers'. Good read."
Yet the hyperbole about an Internet attack frequently overshadows common sense. On Sept. 11, it took less than 24 hours after four passenger jets were used as weapons of mass destruction for cries of cyberterrorism to emerge as the next great threat, triggering calls for new legislation to broaden the authority of law enforcement agencies.
This is exactly the problem. Something incredibly bad happens(9/11), and people look for something to blame. What's the biggest rage in the world right now? The Internet. But most people don't understand the internet, computers, and such. As such, the fact that it's a magic black box that is connected to everything means that it's a danger, and needs to be regulated. We need to stop these knee jerk reactions. I'm not saying that security should not be a concern, but all these calls to regulate the entire internet is blatenly irresponisble. Deregulation fosters growth, much the same as kids with tons of rules generally don't grow up to be extremely crazy thinkers. Stop trying to make anything you see into a scapegoat. The problem is not the internet, nor is it brown skinned people from the middle east. The problem is unenlightened human beings.
The comment was that e-terrorism may occur, but that there would be little loss of life. And I really wonder if the terrorists would attack the network themselves.
I would tend to think they would attack the source, which would attack the network indirectly. Like the comment about the tree falling on a power line and cutting off electricity for a while in an area.
Where I think there ought to be more concern is digital theft. Oddly enough we always hear about young hackers breaking into a network and getting caught. Please tell me where the older hackers are? Since I doubt that there are no older hackers. UNLESS, they are successful and do not get caught. Those are the folks that we need to be scared about in digital terms.
Nut balls like Bin Laden I think are more concerned with killing and general mayhem and anarchy. Sure they may use technology, but that is not their main focus. And I really think that Bin Laden's strength is not high tech, but low tech and sheer simplicity. Like using a plane as a missle. Who would have thought it? What scares me about nut balls like him is that he uses our free societies against us!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
a.) Terrorism is not defined by death. Don't believe me? Look it up.
b.) Your 'point', despite it being horribly wrong, adds nothing to the converstaion. If people maliciously got into a sytem and did harm, they could find creative ways of creating trouble.
The unfortunate side-effect (For the would be terrorists) is that all it'd do is make our systems more secure.
The venture capitalists and wild stock market speculation beat them to it.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Remote reset after a conflict detection is possible for some units, but takes 6-10 seconds, during which period all lights are in blinking red/yellow.
There's an NEMA spec for this, and this functionality is required.
Unfortunately, there's a trend towards putting more functionality in the conflict monitor so it can diagnose and report other problems, then giving it some communications capability. This is a concern. But conflict monitors are, intentionally, much dumber than the main controller, which is a full-fledged computer typically running OS-9.