[109159] in Cypherpunks
The phony infowar
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jukka E Isosaari)
Fri Mar 12 05:56:02 1999
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 12:38:42 +0200 (EET)
From: Jukka E Isosaari <jei@zor.hut.fi>
To: isn@repsec.com, cypherpunks@toad.com, iufo@world.std.com,
CTRL@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Reply-To: Jukka E Isosaari <jei@zor.hut.fi>
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422,2224945,00.html
COMMENT: The phony infowar
With the Clinton Administration seeking billions of dollars to combat
cyberterrorism, and yet more money for an expanded military budget, a
paranoid mind might suspect that we're seeing some real information
warfare in action -- and there is. In this war, misinformation is the
weapon, and truth is the first casualty. Full story. -- Kevin
Poulsen,
CyberCrime
http://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/cybercrime/chaostheory/jump/0,3698,2224814,00.htm=
l
Infowar, Schminfowar
Weldon's spokesman Pete Peterson expounded on the Congressman's blind
panic to Reuters. "[Terrorists] could, for example, hack into a
hospital and change the blood type of a patient or go into people's
pharmaceutical records and send them damaging drugs. Instead of using
conventional weapons like bombs, now they could use computers in the
same way to... kill Americans."
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That was last week. By Monday, more details had filtered out about the
infowar, and the spokesman wasn't returning phone calls.
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The hackers, it turns out, were using common and completely legal
techniques, including port scans and DNS queries, to conduct
superficial probes of the Pentagon systems-- without attempting to
gain access to the computers themselves.
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The only thing noteworthy about the scans is that they were done
slowly, over the course of months instead of seconds, and from a
variety of sources. In short, they were sneakier than usual.
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But, unlike the teenagers who brought us our last "war" by accessing
unclassified Internet computers, these attackers didn't actually break
into any Pentagon systems. They didn't even try to. They just made it
really clear that they were thinking about trying to someday.
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The cyberwar that wasn't came on the heels of another bogus story
about hackers gaining control of a UK military satellite and holding
it hostage. In the same week the office of the US comptroller of
currency issued a public warning from that the nation's banks may be
vulnerable to, you guessed it, "cyber-terrorists."
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With the administration seeking billions of dollars to combat
cyberterrorism, and yet more money for an expanded military budget, a
paranoid mind might suspect that we're seeing some real information
warfare in action-- a battle for the hearts of the American people,
and for the pea-size minds of lawmakers who honestly believe that the
Internet controls the power grid, 911 systems, and hospital records.
=20
In this war, misinformation is the weapon, and truth is the first
casualty.
=20
back=20
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