Americans More Worried About Cybersecurity Than Terrorism

TheGift73 tips an article discussing a new study (PDF) which found Americans are now more worried about cybersecurity threats than they are about terrorism. Here's Techdirt's acerbic take: "Well, it looks like all the fearmongering about hackers shutting down electrical grids and making planes fall from the sky is working. No matter that there's no evidence of any actual risk, or that the only real issue is if anyone is stupid enough to actually connect such critical infrastructure to the internet (the proper response to which is: take it off the internet), fear is spreading. Of course, this is mostly due to the work of a neat combination of ex-politicians/now lobbyists working for defense contractors who stand to make a ton of money from the panic — enabled by politicians who seem to have no shame in telling scary bedtime stories that have no basis in reality."

Comments

Re:fearmongering

[girlintraining]

He who controls the media, controls the future.

Not really effective unless the population is uneducated. Considering the price of education has risen, er, 270% in the last 15 years... it would seem to indicate a concerted effort to turn an informed citizenship into mindless zombies, which has traditionally been the precursor to the fall of democratic government. I've found in the past 2 years or so people believing all kinds of non-sense that simply wouldn't have been tolerated before then. The anti-vaxxers, the global warming 'skeptics', creationism being taught in schools, homeopathic remedies... and the other day I had someone yelling at me because they thought that hair had nerves in it. It's become politically vogue to be a blithering moron.