Forwarded from: Rob Rosenberger <junkmailat_private> >>Im not quite sure what kind of critical infrastructure >>protection you think the FBI or NIPC would have been >>able to carry out. It seems highly unlikely that anyone >>would have been able to do anything. An excellent point, Brooks. I don't fault the CIA just because they didn't know enough beforehand. Nor do I fault overtaxed FBI agents who didn't know enough beforehand. I *do* fault FBI NIPC for strutting on the media stage, telling reporters how Osama would attack us by computer and focusing an overwhelming majority of their resources in that area because it made for great PR. Clinton's vaunted "PDD 63" tasked them to protect the critical infrastructures from Osama bin Laden ... but FBI NIPC was too busy looking for Osama bin Virus. Thankfully -- and I mean "thankfully" without sarcasm here -- it only cost roughly 3,000 lives before FBI finally gave NIPC director Ron Dick the tools he needed to overcome his agency's infatuation with the Internet. (Notice I didn't say "infatuation with protecting the Internet." FBI NIPC and the Pentagon will run like helpless damsels to the antivirus industry if a virus war ever breaks out between the U.S. and China. But that's another story.) Rob - 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 : Sat Mar 09 2002 - 04:50:54 PST