Terrorism Hysteria on the Net

Today's USA has a pair of front page stories: 
 
 
"Feds ready anti-terror cyberteam" and "Terrorism on the Net -- Post-Cold
War hysteria or a national threat?" 
 
 
They lay out the nightmares and the valiant TLA-daydreams to out-fund the
hackers and out-flummox the public. 
 
 
"You bring me a select group of hackers and within 90 days I'll bring this
country to its knees, " says Jim Settle, retired director of the FBI's
computer crime squad. 
 
 
"The threat is there, it's very real," says CIA General Counsel Jeffrey
Smith. "If we have a Unabomber who decides to launch an attack with a PC
instead of a bomb, (there could be) real damage."

On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, John Young wrote:

> Today's USA has a pair of front page stories: 
>  
> They lay out the nightmares and the valiant TLA-daydreams to out-fund the
> hackers and out-flummox the public. 
>  
>  
> "You bring me a select group of hackers and within 90 days I'll bring this
> country to its knees, " says Jim Settle, retired director of the FBI's
> computer crime squad. 

He says that as if it were a bad thing...

> "The threat is there, it's very real," says CIA General Counsel Jeffrey
> Smith. "If we have a Unabomber who decides to launch an attack with a PC
> instead of a bomb, (there could be) real damage." 

Actually, he's probably right. If all the cypherpunks, say, turned "bad,"
there'd be no government and no economy, because so many big systems are so
insecure.

Pooh-poohing the potential risk is not a winning proposition. Pointing out
that the government's policies against properly secure systems have created
this house of cards in which we live is. The NRC crypto report helps
legitimize this spin.

-rich

On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, Rich Graves wrote:

> On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, John Young wrote:
> 
> > Today's USA has a pair of front page stories: 
> >  
> > They lay out the nightmares and the valiant TLA-daydreams to out-fund the
> > hackers and out-flummox the public. 
> >  
> >  
> > "You bring me a select group of hackers and within 90 days I'll bring this
> > country to its knees, " says Jim Settle, retired director of the FBI's
> > computer crime squad. 
> 
> He says that as if it were a bad thing...
> 
> > "The threat is there, it's very real," says CIA General Counsel Jeffrey
> > Smith. "If we have a Unabomber who decides to launch an attack with a PC
> > instead of a bomb, (there could be) real damage." 
> 
> Actually, he's probably right. If all the cypherpunks, say, turned "bad,"
> there'd be no government and no economy, because so many big systems are so
> insecure.

One could make the case that this would actually make the United States 
(if c'punks concentrated their attentions there) the most data secure 
country on the planet over time.


---
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"In fact, had Bancroft not existed,       potestas scientiae in usu est
Franklin might have had to invent him."    in nihilum nil posse reverti
00B9289C28DC0E55  E16D5378B81E1C96 - Finger for Current Key Information
Opp. Counsel: For all your expert testimony needs: jimbell@pacifier.com

On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, John Young wrote:

> Today's USA has a pair of front page stories: 
> "Feds ready anti-terror cyberteam" and "Terrorism on the Net -- Post-Cold
> War hysteria or a national threat?" 
> They lay out the nightmares and the valiant TLA-daydreams to out-fund the
> hackers and out-flummox the public. 
> "You bring me a select group of hackers and within 90 days I'll bring this
> country to its knees, " says Jim Settle, retired director of the FBI's
> computer crime squad. 

	Give me 15 well trained soldiers(near special forces level) and I
can do it in less than 60 days. Without touching a computer. 

	There was a blue print published by Omni Magazine in the mid to
late 80's written by Henry Kissinger (IIRC). 

	Give me 15 McVey's with the ability to follow orders and I'll have
this country in chaos in 2 weeks. 

	It isn't that hard, it is just that almost everyone prefers the
current system to total death & destruction chaos that follows a strong
government collapsing. Society holds itself together in large part not
because of the rule of law, but becaue most people want it to. 


Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@crash.suba.com

snow wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, John Young wrote:
> 
> > Today's USA has a pair of front page stories:
> > "Feds ready anti-terror cyberteam" and "Terrorism on the Net -- Post-Cold
> > War hysteria or a national threat?"
> > They lay out the nightmares and the valiant TLA-daydreams to out-fund the
> > hackers and out-flummox the public.
> > "You bring me a select group of hackers and within 90 days I'll bring this
> > country to its knees, " says Jim Settle, retired director of the FBI's
> > computer crime squad.
> 
>         Give me 15 well trained soldiers(near special forces level) and I
> can do it in less than 60 days. Without touching a computer.

Give me 10 well trained biological warfare scientists and I'll do it
in 30 ...

Any more bids?  :-)

Gary
--
pub  1024/C001D00D 1996/01/22  Gary Howland <gary@systemics.com>
Key fingerprint =  0C FB 60 61 4D 3B 24 7D  1C 89 1D BE 1F EE 09 06

On Tue, 11 Jun 1996, Gary Howland wrote:

> >         Give me 15 well trained soldiers(near special forces level) and I
> > can do it in less than 60 days. Without touching a computer.
> 
> Give me 10 well trained biological warfare scientists and I'll do it
> in 30 ...

    Give me 3 ICBM nukes and I'll do it in 1.

                    Bruce M. * brucem@feist.com
        ~---------------------------------------------------~
        "Knowledge enormous makes a god of me." -- John Keats