Forwarded from: Junkmail Rosenberger <junkmailat_private> I reject Knowles' argument out-of-hand. He misses the point when he asserts "[who] would have thought that someone would have hijacked commercial jetliners and used them as cruise missiles." The simple fact is that terrorists *always* had the ability to turn planes into cruise missiles; their effectiveness as flying bombs merely grew in proportion to their fuel payload. On the other hand, Cluley & I & others insist no one [yet] has the ability to destroy America with a computer virus (read http://Vmyths.com/rant.cfm?id=410&page=4 for starters). We can therefore sum up Knowles' misguided argument as follows: --> "commercial aircraft as bomb" is VERY feasible but NOT likely; --> "computer virus as bomb" is NOT feasible but VERY likely. Knowles & others (e.g. Michael Vatis, Richard Clarke) could validate their cyber-terrorism arguments with just one -- I repeat, ONE -- technologically feasible idea for destroying America with a computer virus. Rob Rosenberger, Vmyths editor Truth about computer virus hysteria http://Vmyths.com [WK Note: One problem I have is occasionally I don't make myself clear in my commentary on ISN, this can be attributed to lack of sleep, lack of RedBull in the fridge, and the thought of business travel. There are others, but I'd have to sleep on that. > I guess Cluley thinks the same about landmines too, if one is not > careful where placing them and mapping their location, one could > also very well be a victim, but viruses like landmines make for > great force multipliers for a cyberterrorist." What I was meaning to say is that I don't expect the Internet to melt down over one virus, but that the tactical use of viruses would be one weapon of several that a cyberterrorist would likely use to create mayhem. Just as you would use landmines, razor wire, & interlocking fields of machinegun fire to slow your enenmy down. > I am not looking forward to the day of when we see a simultaneous > cross-platform, multiple vulnerability virus that would have the > AV companies pulling their hair out trying to find a solution, and > then able to push that software update onto networks severely > choked with a combination of DDoS attacks, virus traffic, network > outages, and major DNS servers down from repeated hacking attacks. I agree with Rob that Usama is not interested in melting your MP3's, Russian pr0n pics, or mailing out everyone in your Outlook address book 'I send this for your advice' with a virus, Usama wants you dead. I have yet to see anyone bring up cyberterrorism with regular terrorism, and that is another point that I should make clear here, I have always belived (along with a few others) that cyberterrorism would be used first before a large scale terrorist attack. Slowing down or stopping commerical, goverment, and military networks along with the interdependence of the Internet would cripple the basic command and control of government and first responders to a major terrorism event. But enough of me ranting on, I have to get some sleep and run to Costco for another case of RedBull. - William Knowles 9.30.01] - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Nov 30 2001 - 06:35:22 PST