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

fearmongering

[nurb432]

Has always been an effective tactic for manipulating public opinion.

He who controls the media, controls the future.

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.

Re:fearmongering

[DarwinSurvivor]

And the minute they have even a shred of physical evidence, we'll reconsider the matter. Until then, it can be kept in the phylosophy and debate classes along with all the other religions that catholics seem to think don't deserve to be taught in schools and we'll keep science class limited to things science related..

Re:fearmongering

[thomsonjones]

So why do we teach evolution as the only answer?

Because evolution has actual evidence. And probably for the same reason we don't teach people about invisible magical pink unicorns living on mars in schools.

Re:fearmongering

[Sperbels]

I'm talking a creator in a very generic system which is a fundamental thought process in the study of Philosophy. Very much like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes arguments. There is no particular Religion involved in the logic.

A creator is plausible. But there is no evidence for one so it's not science. It's pure speculation.

Re:fearmongering

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

SHUT DOWN THE NET! FOR NATIONAL SECURITY!

The psyop seems to be working - but tell that to MLB. They post their WEP passphrase on national TV!

Re:fearmongering

[Ironchew]

There is not a single shred of evidence to prove there is not a creator. Not one. So why do we teach evolution as the only answer?

It's impossible to prove the non-existence of god(s), pink unicorns, etc. The burden of proof lies with those asserting that God is real to, well, prove it.
Evolution has evidence. Creationism does not. Therefore, creationism should not be entertained in a science classroom except as an illustrative example of pseudoscience.

Re:fearmongering

[cpu6502]

>>> price of education has risen, er, 270% in the last 15 years

No the price of a college degree has risen. The price of an "education" has dropped to $20/month (cost of an internet line so you can download free lectures and textbooks and informative websites). I've learned more from these downloads than I ever did in college (which taught me a lot of stuff I forgot).

Re:fearmongering

[poopdeville]

Um, this is a fallacy. Just because there are two choices does not make them equally probable. You might get hit by lightning tomorrow. You might not. Are the odds 50:50? (No)

Fearmongering?

[Hentes]

Hacking causes a lot more damage than terrorists ever did.

Illiterate, donkey riding, half starved..

[Paracelcus]

Illiterate, donkey riding, half starved, hyper religious nutbags with AK47's and common explosives have the most fearsome, multi trillion dollar super/mega military/intelligence/surveillance machine ever to exist, ANYWHERE at a strategic standstill! and even more this handful of inbreds (less than a thousand, Al Whastsa or so I've heard) so much so as to have made the Land of the FREE into the Land of the Spied upon/Groped, bugged and X-Rayed! Even if these guy's could commandeer some rusty Soviet era military boat, what are they gonna do? I'll take my chances and have my freedom back!

Show me the questionnaire

[yuna49]

I don't trust executive summaries of polling data; I want to see the entire questionnaire so I can understand the context in which the questions were asked. I'd bet that if people were asked an open-ended question about the "problems facing our country today" cyberterrorism would be lucky to get a 1% response. Here are the top items from the most recent New York Times/CBS poll released yesterday:

Economy and jobs 62%
Federal budget deficit 11
Health care 9
Same-sex marriage 7
Foreign policy 4
Immigration 2
Other/DK 4

I don't see terrorism of any sort on that list.

Even if we accept the findings of the survey, what is most striking in the results is the substantial increase in respondents who say they are "not concerned" about the threats asked about compared to a year ago.

Moreover at least one question has nothing to do with IT, the one about respondents' ability to "meet essential financial obligations." For more relevant questions, solid majorities report being only "somewhat" or "not concerned" about the security of online shopping and banking, computer viruses and spam email, and their own personal security.

The IT media has a habit of touting these self-serving studies by organizations like, in this case, Unisys as somehow providing an "objective" view of public opinion. Puh-leeze.