In a Wired article today there is a story surrounding a report by a expert formerly of the State and Commerce Departments.
…To all those Chicken Littles clucking frantically about the imminent threat of a terrorist attack on U.S. computer networks, a new report says: Knock it off.
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,” said Jim Lewis, a 16-year veteran of the State and Commerce Departments. He compiled the analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Nations are more robust than the early analysts of cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare give them credit for,” Lewis wrote in the report. “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.”
It is a signifigant report, signifying that the experts perhaps do not see the imminent threat proported by the Bush administration. This report downplays the importance of ,or need for, Bush’s strategy for total web monitoring.
The government, to this point, has seemed to receive little or no opposition to it’s Big Brother reminiscent strategies.
The list of computerized risks that have been reported over the last year may now perhaps recieve some second looks. Risks such as:
Network Associates Vice President Terry Benzel told the House of Representatives’ Science Committee in October that “people will die, the nation’s economy will be crippled and protective services systems will be weakened” if terrorists with hacking abilities successfully attack the country’s infrastructure.
In a September survey conducted by the National League of Cities, municipal officials cited Internet attacks as their third biggest terror worry — ahead of car bombs, “dirty nukes” and airplanes ramming into skyscrapers.
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