More
Matrix Masters
Blogs
World Events
US News
Science & Health
Earth News
Free Speech
News from Africa
News from Palestine
Bill of Rights Under Attack

Matrix Masters'
SUPPORTERS

Lorenzo's
Random Musings
. . . about Chaos,
Reason, and Hope

 

Terrorists on the Net? Who Cares?
(Noah Shachtman, Wired.com, December 20, 2002)
Online attacks are merely "weapons of mass annoyance," no more harmful than the routine power failures, airplane delays and dropped phone calls that take place every day. . . . "The idea that hackers are going to bring the nation to its knees is too far-fetched a scenario to be taken seriously," . . . "Infrastructure systems (are) more flexible and responsive in restoring service than the early analysts realized, in part because they have to deal with failure on a routine basis." . . . Take the electrical grid, often cited as a bright red bull's-eye in terrorists' sights. The panoply of public and private power providers -- more than 3,000 in all -- has been nearly impossible to take down by electronic attack, Lewis wrote. The network is just too far-flung. . . . But for the most part, he contends, the damage from such attacks will be minimal -- even as the Pentagon adopts a more network-centric way of fighting terrorism. . . . "No nation has placed its military forces in a position where they are dependent on computer networks that are vulnerable to outside attack," he writes. "For example, while there were many attacks against U.S. military computer networks during operations in Kosovo, none of these attacks resulted in a single sortie being canceled or in a single casualty."

posted by LoZo 6:13 PM