full-disclosure - Speculation in the media (Was: Re: CERT Employee Gets Owned)

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Message-ID: <20030826201451.GA6111@trusteddebian.org>
From: peter at trusteddebian.org (Peter Busser)
Subject: Speculation in the media (Was: Re: CERT Employee Gets Owned)

Hi!

> You have *zero* knowledge about *this* incident.  And *that* was my
> point.  It's bad enough that the damn news media speculates about
> everything under the sun these days.

Right, the media do speculate about almost everything. Yesterday there was
speculation on the Dutch tv about ``cyberterrorism''. The program started about
sobig, saying it caused a lot of damage. Then it went on to stating that
developing sobig and others takes a lot of people, time and money. Therefore
the only organisations who are capable of doing such development are mafia
and terrorist organisations. The program went on to conclude that especially
public utilities, like power companies, are vulnerable to this kind of
terrorism. And of course the obligatory politician who vows to take measures
was part of the program.

I sent these people an e-mail message saying that the terrorist angle doesn't
sound very convincing. Terrorists are, it seems to me, after terrifying people.
I don't think shutting down a power plant is a really effective way to do that.
Also that most virusses and worms are likely to be written by individuals who
try to show off their skills.

The only answer I got was: We didn't address this subject, that was a different
program. (Nonwithstanding the fact that the title of the broadcast was:
Computer-terrorism, something everyone can verify at their web site.)

Groetjes,
Peter Busser
-- 
The Adamantix Project
Taking trustworthy software out of the labs, and into the real world
http://www.adamantix.org/