Americans More Worried About Cybersecurity Than Terrorism 266
TheGift73 tips an article discussing a new study (PDF) which found Americans are now more worried about cybersecurity threats than they are about terrorism. Here's Techdirt's acerbic take:
"Well, it looks like all the fearmongering about hackers shutting down electrical grids and making planes fall from the sky is working. No matter that there's no evidence of any actual risk, or that the only real issue is if anyone is stupid enough to actually connect such critical infrastructure to the internet (the proper response to which is: take it off the internet), fear is spreading. Of course, this is mostly due to the work of a neat combination of ex-politicians/now lobbyists working for defense contractors who stand to make a ton of money from the panic — enabled by politicians who seem to have no shame in telling scary bedtime stories that have no basis in reality."
fearmongering (Score:5, Insightful)
Has always been an effective tactic for manipulating public opinion.
He who controls the media, controls the future.
Re:fearmongering (Score:4, Informative)
Re:fearmongering (Score:5, Funny)
SHUT DOWN THE NET! FOR NATIONAL SECURITY!
The psyop seems to be working - but tell that to MLB. They post their WEP passphrase on national TV! [blogspot.com]
Re:fearmongering (Score:5, Interesting)
He who controls the media, controls the future.
Not really effective unless the population is uneducated. Considering the price of education has risen, er, 270% in the last 15 years... it would seem to indicate a concerted effort to turn an informed citizenship into mindless zombies, which has traditionally been the precursor to the fall of democratic government. I've found in the past 2 years or so people believing all kinds of non-sense that simply wouldn't have been tolerated before then. The anti-vaxxers, the global warming 'skeptics', creationism being taught in schools, homeopathic remedies... and the other day I had someone yelling at me because they thought that hair had nerves in it. It's become politically vogue to be a blithering moron.
Re:fearmongering (Score:5, Insightful)
>>> price of education has risen, er, 270% in the last 15 years
No the price of a college degree has risen. The price of an "education" has dropped to $20/month (cost of an internet line so you can download free lectures and textbooks and informative websites). I've learned more from these downloads than I ever did in college (which taught me a lot of stuff I forgot).
Education, cost and need (Score:3)
"'Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life - save only this - if you work hard and diligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education."
--John Alexander Smith, Oxford professor of moral philosophy.
That ability doesn't necessarily cost money to acquire, which is fortunate, because in an era of Internet, talk radio, and cable "news", it is indispen
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To be able to learn when "a man is talking rot" you need both positive and negative examples.
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Are you really that analytically challenged? People have been believing unbelievably stupid shit for a LOOOOOONG time.
Not so analytically challenged as to miss the qualifying statement in the past three years...
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It's become politically vogue to be a blithering moron.
This has been an aspect of American life for... well, ever.
Re:fearmongering (Score:5, Insightful)
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it can be kept in the phylosophy(sic) and debate classes
Small problem with that. There are no such classes in high school anymore.
I've never even taken a single philosophy class myself, or even read any of the required reading, but even I know that people who have died centuries ago would look at our forums full of shrill creationist/atheist flamewars, shake their head, and wonder how all the barbarians managed to travel into the future, and why only the mentally stunted ones made the trip.
(Really the most important thing an education can give you is a taxonomy
Re:fearmongering (Score:5, Informative)
So why do we teach evolution as the only answer?
Because evolution has actual evidence. And probably for the same reason we don't teach people about invisible magical pink unicorns living on mars in schools.
polarization is not helpful. (Score:4, Interesting)
Regardless of my personal beliefs, I see no reason for evolution to exclude a deity or vice versa. /.; unless the nuts are right...
This polarization reminds me of the sports mentality of US vs THEM; and it troubles me that seemingly able people are so hamstrung by such nonsense.
Metaphysical belief is is a spectrum, and people subscribe to different regions of it.
I'm proud of my 98% Chimp ancestors (although my better half thinks I'm too modest). I can relate to Christian Humanists; and can't relate to intolerant fanatics, regardless of faith.
It isn't a contest, and we will never know the answer; unless the faithful are right, but then we will never get to mumble about it on
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>>>Because you are here, there is most likely a creator.
Or not.
Could have sprung from nothing.
AND even if we presume there's a creator...... well then who created the creator? Hmmm. (ponder). It is more probable that a random, chaotic universe came into being, than a fully-formed intelligent person with tremendous power just suddenly "popped" into existence.
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The universe, as we think it works now, has an instant of creation, a first moment. That doesn't mean everything else which can be considered scientifically has to have one. If the Steady State theory had better stood up to scientific scrutiny, we'd be discussing the universe as a scientific concept but saying there was no need to postulate a creator for it, or to theorize anything about its creation, since it has been around forever and so doesn't have a creation (or presumably, need a creator). If God exi
Re:fearmongering (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, this is a fallacy. Just because there are two choices does not make them equally probable. You might get hit by lightning tomorrow. You might not. Are the odds 50:50? (No)
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It is a fallacy to assume that because two possibilities exist that they must be equally probable. Nobody on earth knows the odds on this sort of a "bet". It is also a mistake to award equal effort or weight to all possibilities in an investigation, since there are innumerable dead-end
Re:fearmongering (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm talking a creator in a very generic system which is a fundamental thought process in the study of Philosophy. Very much like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes arguments. There is no particular Religion involved in the logic.
A creator is plausible. But there is no evidence for one so it's not science. It's pure speculation.
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Even if it just so happened that a god "jump-started" creation and left the universe alone after that, it is a proposition that lies outside the realm of science. Asserting it was created and left alone leaves science with no more knowledge than asserting otherwise.
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No it's not, it's pseudo science. It's a possible answer, but without proof it's just that. From your perspective, I could also be the first rutabaga to pass the Turing test. I hope you don't also consider that to be relevant to science or I shall have to taunt you a second time.
This sort of ignorance and the way you don't seem to recognize it is truly mind blowing.
Aristotle's idea had a huge hole in that you would have to have an infinite regress problem as you would then need something to create this god
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That is a very simple paradox to answer. Just like "Well, if God is all powerful can he make a stone so heavy he can't lift it" is simple to answer.
People that fail to think of course find holes in any argument. Atheist evangelists really blow my mind with how the only thing that can possibly be an answer is nothing. Even with no proof either way, their way has to be right.
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>>>"Something had to start the shit."
False assumption. This universe could have spawned from another universe (read Hawking), or simply from itself (a continuous loop). It doesn't mean there was intelligence behind it.
>>>There is not a single shred of evidence to prove there is not a creator.
That's because it's imposible to prove a negative. For example: There is no way to prove that Santa Clause does not exist. You can say, "Well he's not over here, or over here, or over here....." an
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If you are willing to believe in a Platonic universe, you must be willing to believe in string theory. The whole point of string theory is that it is the logical theory (in the sense of the first order logic) taken by taking the "known" laws of physics as axioms. This is Platonic realism in a scientific context.
Stop skipping class and lecturing us.
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What happens before the Big Bang is outside of the realm of science since it doesn't work with observables. Prior to the Planck epoch, you enter into the realms of metaphysics and philosophy and science has nothing to do with this. Scientists may have an opinion of what was there before (and in fact you'll see they're rather diverse), but they're opinions, not hypotheses, much less theories.
Re:fearmongering (Score:4, Informative)
There is not a single shred of evidence to prove there is not a creator. Not one. So why do we teach evolution as the only answer?
It's impossible to prove the non-existence of god(s), pink unicorns, etc. The burden of proof lies with those asserting that God is real to, well, prove it.
Evolution has evidence. Creationism does not. Therefore, creationism should not be entertained in a science classroom except as an illustrative example of pseudoscience.
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The beginnings of the universe have very little to do with the theory of evolution. Yet, for some reason, you keep bringing it up in this argument, as if it makes your assertion that creationism (meaning the belief that every living thing on the planet was here at the beginning of the universe, or the planet, or whatever) belongs in a science classroom. There is absolutely no evidence that that belief is true, so the argument is "
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You'll find that scientists have little interest in attempting to answer a question that cannot be answered unequivocally, even theoretically. Those that do tend to say they're philosophers :)
There are so many questions to ask that CAN in fact be answered that I personally find it wasteful to spend time and effort on questions that can't.
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Science lies in the realm of that which we can observe and measure. The things that are by definition unobservable and thus unprovable must be articles of faith; even if argued logically they must require an irrational link somewhere. As a man of science and faith, I find it a tragic mistake to conflate the two.
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There is not a single shred of evidence to prove there is not a creator. Not one. So why do we teach evolution as the only answer?
We don't. You made that up. We only teach that there is evidence for evolution, which could happen with or without any entity at the wheel. You should be glad of that, because if anyone ever does find proof of a creator, it will be someone who knew that you can't rely on the presence of complex life for that proof, and so looked elsewhere.
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Science classes at pre-college levels rarely distinguish between things that are "known" to be true and things that are useful models that fit the evidence.
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If you want to talk about the idea of a creator in a deistic sense, as in something outside of known history, then yes; that's perfectly well and good and you can go on winding up the watches in your blind watchmaker's front-window display case. If you want to talk about the idea in an historical context, absolutely; undoubtedly creation myths have had a great impact on how people act and how empires were wound up. These are important matters that should not be ignored, lest we lose the lessons garnered fro
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The fact that people don't know that represents a significant failure on the part of the education system.
Actually, I hear this rote repeated incessantly, so I have to assume the state education system is performing its job of dumbing down the populace and eliminating any remnant of critical thinking among its products has been a resounding success.
The proof is quite clear, in that there is no one that can discern the difference between arguing the existence of god and the existence of pink unicorns. They are both entirely unrelated philosophical arguments, and the fact that so few people seem to be able to ma
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Ok great. But which creation stories? All of them? Only the popular ones?
Hmm maybe we can *cough* have a holy war to figure out which creation story to teach since there is a limited amount of time in class rooms.
"Einstein believed in God"
Yeah but that is out of context. He didn't believe in your god at all.
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Your questions are not relevant to anything I stated. I was very explicit that it must be taught in generic terms. A creator without a Religion is a fundamental part of Philosophy. You would know if you studied just a bit, I think we covered Socrates and Plato's version in the first week of the first semester. AFAIK, that was a bit ahead of any of the common Religions. Aristotle's "uncaused cause" is another fine example of creation without Religion.
Instead of immediately being defensive try to do a bi
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Hardly. Einstein did not believe in the same "god" that people capitalize the "G" for. His god is nature, the natural world and order. His god was not some white man with a beard in the sky causing floods of biblical proportions and causing miracles.
Sure, creation stories are a part of philosophy, anthropology, history, and other studies of the human condition. But that's creation stories taken as a whole. No specific story deserves any more focus or credence than the others in any serious field of study. T
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Idiotic AC, read up on Einstein. He was a devout Jew and very much for a Zionist run country. Here you go. [alberteinstein.info]
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You are confusing Jewish the people, and Jewish the religion. They often appear together, so it's not uncommon to make this mistake. But they are two separate things. Judiasm is a belief system. But you don't have to believe in Judiasm to be Jewish. Being Jewish is also an identity separate from the religion. There are plenty of Jewish people who are secular, agnostic, or even atheist, as well as believers in Judiasm who are not Jewish (converted).
Einstein may have identified with the people, but he did not
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Thank you for pointing out what atheists do constantly to anyone with a belief other than atheism.
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Atheism is a belief the very same way not collecting stamps is a hobby.
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Citation was given, scroll up.
A quick google search should be all that's needed however. Looks like some AC is reproducing myth to me.
Is that really bad? (Score:2)
Maybe it's manipulating in the right direction. If reason alone can't change the average person person's habits (delaying system patches/anti-virus updates, throwing caution to the wind when receiving email/chat attachments), while a little fear can, then maybe that fear is a good thing. I'd say anti-smoking campaigns using shock/disgust to reach their audience are on the same level. At least we won't get our genitals fondled by strangers*
*not to imply there aren't people who enjoy that.
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..by more strangers, I mean.
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Wait... I thought that was the whole reason the Internet was created....
See also rule 34.
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Ironically all the scaremongering comes from groups like Anonymous, who claim to oppose draconian law. Now a whole draft of such laws are going to be introduced to combat a threat that was never really there (Anonymous).
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Some people think Anonymous was either an invention of the U.S. government, or was hijacked by the government, in order to sell the story that websites need to be protected by a military cybersecurity initiative (and thus justify their billion-dollar defense budgets).
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...anyone is stupid enough to actually connect such critical infrastructure to the internet...
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Rather then being concerned about something that could really use attention like climate change, dependence on fossil fuels or population growth. Nope, we must be scared of bogeymen.
Stay Scared, Stay uniformed.
Fox News will be back after these messages from your overlords.
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He who controls the media, controls the future.
No.
Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.
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I see this as sane. The risk of terrorism has always been overblown. But there are literally tens of thousands (or even hundreds of thousands or millions) of black hats out there totally willing to steal your identity or crack your voicemail, like the Murdoch family did to anybody they wanted to investigate or intimidate.
Take it off the Internet? (Score:2)
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To be fair, at least some of the compromised systems in Iran weren't connected to the Internet.
*Everything* is connected to the internet. It's just that sometimes it takes a human operator to close the loop.
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If the flaw is some person sticking a virus-laden USB stick into a unconnected power plant or other gadget, then we don't need a "cybersecurity military" to lockdown the web (and takeaway our online freedoms). We need to stop employees from doing stupid stuff, like sticking USB sticks into power plants/mission-critical gadgets.
"Fear is the mind killer."
- Dune
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There are known solutions for employees doing stupid stuff, but three of the most functional are building public spiritedness, a high esperit de corps, and intense, realistic training. All tend to cost a lot. Companies therefore tend to pick the exact opposite options: For example, all outsourcing across national boundaries means giving work to people who live far away from the people their mistakes might affect. They have to give a damn, not about the people they see as they go to and from work, but about
Re:Take it off the Internet? (Score:4, Informative)
You can't take the power grid off the Internet. You know why? Because of (ironically) reliability. Let's look at Texas, which is governed by ERCOT. ERCOT facilitates sharing between the different power utilities, as well as energy trading. Much of this (and more in the future) is facilitated by communications about load, actual generation and available reserve generation capacity. These three numbers change more frequently, dramatically and unexpectedly than you might think. An industrial plant fires up a furnace...and whammo, suddenly a utility has 25MW of load show up out of nowhere without warning, and they have to push their boilers to produce more power to keep up. (If load and generation get out of balance, very bad things happen...but frequency regulation is a story for another time). If a plant trips because of some mishap, then suddenly a bunch of generation drops off the grid. If it's a big plant, then that utility may need to draw power from a neighbor to keep up, at least until they can restart the plant (or bring demand generators online).
Without these interconnections, the ability to respond this way greatly drops off. So it's a situation where the overall grid becomes more stable, but at the cost of providing a degree of interconnectivity that makes it more feasible for an attacker to go after it via cyber attacks. A lot is being done to manage the vulnerabilities and risks, mostly under the NERC CIP regulatory standards. There's a nugget of truth to the fearmongering, but taking it all off the Internet is not even remotely realistic.
So Die Hard is part of a MAFIAA plot (Score:2)
Along with every other movie/show that portrays hacking as a ridiculously quick, all powerful weapon.
It is a useful plot tool, you can make all kinds of hypothetical situation sound plausible because of peoples ignorance. Then if you reinforce this enough with next movie people start to believe it.
I don't even know where to begin. (Score:3)
I use my netbook to turn off lift. It makes planes fall out of the sky. I knew that I'd become a terrorist when I ran apt-get install alter-universe-fundamental-forces, I just didn't care.
PLANES! The planes, I reign, fall mainly in the plains. Turbulence, that's me. Fuck all y'all. I do it for the lulz.
I am very sorry, but reading this article made me lose braininess. Next I'll be laughing at Dolan comics.
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It's not working. What repository do I need to add? I'm assuming I'll need to 'sudo' first for my Kubuntu box, so maybe I'll just put it on my old Puppy linux box. Does 'alter-universe' still work with Debian?
Well yeah (Score:2)
Terrorism's a solved now isn't it? They killed Osama, and we've got all those TSA people preventing terrorism all over the place. The government's doing something, so there's no more risk.
Meanwhile, cyberterrorism? I don't really understand all this cyber stuff. If I don't understand it, it must be scary. Also, where's the TSA for cyberspace? We need the TSA to be secure don't we? I can't see any cyberterrorism countermeasures in my every day life. We must be doing nothing! And it's scary!
Fearmongering? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hacking causes a lot more damage than terrorists ever did.
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Hacking causes a lot more damage than terrorists ever did.
[Citation needed]
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More importantly, everyone I know has been bitten by at least one virus in their lifetime.
I don't know anyone who lost a relative to a terrorist attack, much less who survived a bombing.
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To make that comparison, you have to quantify the value of a human life. Rich societies seem to be willing to spend one or two million dollars to save a human life. Multiply that by the number of lives lost to terrorism, and you can compare that to losses from computer crime.
Computer crime wins by a huge margin.
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$129,000 [time.com]
Illiterate, donkey riding, half starved.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Illiterate, donkey riding, half starved, hyper religious nutbags with AK47's and common explosives have the most fearsome, multi trillion dollar super/mega military/intelligence/surveillance machine ever to exist, ANYWHERE at a strategic standstill! and even more this handful of inbreds (less than a thousand, Al Whastsa or so I've heard) so much so as to have made the Land of the FREE into the Land of the Spied upon/Groped, bugged and X-Rayed! Even if these guy's could commandeer some rusty Soviet era military boat, what are they gonna do? I'll take my chances and have my freedom back!
Freedom and safety (Score:2)
>I'll take my chances and have my freedom back!
As will I, along with everyone else who adheres to the ideas on which America was founded.
But don't get trapped into thinking in the enemy's terms. Freedom and safety are not a tradeoff. It is more dangerous to live in North Korea than it is to live in a free country. Even a small non-free regime such as Pol Pot's equaled between 300 and 1,000 9/11s.
Real concerns about cybersecurity. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm concerned about cybersecurity, but I'm not concerned about cyber threats translating to physical threats, but rather economic threats, and they are very much real.
Namely, getting my identity stolen or having US technology secrets getting stolen by somebody who hasn't invested the R&D into it. Namely, 50 years of NASA research being stolen, which has already happened.
I'm sure there are many slashdotters out there who believe that tech secrets should be free, but I don't think so. When you put effort into a project, only to have somebody else rip off your idea and implement it with none of that cost, and therefore they can implement it cheaper than you can, making your entire effort go to waste, is really underhanded and in my opinion unfair.
And before somebody says getting your identity stolen is only the result of your own stupidity, think again. It's often necessary for you to give out important personal information in order to do business. And even in spite of their best efforts to keep their systems secure, even if they made all of the right choices and didn't let their security practices laps, zero day vulnerabilities always manage to show up.
For these reasons, I think cybersecurity should definitely be a concern.
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Oh and by the way, just to clarify one thing with regard to intellectual property: I do actually pirate movies and tv shows, but it's not a matter of getting them for free, rather it's the distribution system sucks. I actually pay for usenet access and pay for a faster broadband connection in order to download from usenet faster (whereas if proper streaming was available I'd probably subscribe to a lower speed tier.)
If the entertainment industry provided a universal (as in one website, rather than going to
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50 years of NASA research being stolen, which has already happened.
Stolen? NASA is a public entity, and its advances should rightly be part of the public domain.
I'm sure there are many slashdotters out there who believe that tech secrets should be free, but I don't think so. When you put effort into a project, only to have somebody else rip off your idea and implement it with none of that cost, and therefore they can implement it cheaper than you can, making your entire effort go to waste, is really underhanded and in my opinion unfair.
Lots of things in life are unfair. The question is, will enforcement of a solution be more harmful to society than leaving things be? I can think of enough egregious abuses of the notion of "intellectual property" to err on the side of not giving up more of my freedoms.
And before somebody says getting your identity stolen is only the result of your own stupidity, think again.
Not many people think that. In the case of financial "identity theft", however, the banks try to cover their asses. It is often the shoddy security
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Stolen? NASA is a public entity, and its advances should rightly be part of the public domain.
I'm sure the US military would disagree that it's technological secrets should belong to the public domain.
Lots of things in life are unfair.
That's why we have laws to keep things fair. Would you think its fair if a burglar robbed your house, and you had no legal recourse?
It is often the shoddy security practices of banks (yay deregulation!) that allow massive overseas transfers to happen in the first place.
I'm sur
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I'm sure the US military would disagree that it's technological secrets should belong to the public domain.
Well, guess what? It's funded by taxpayers, so unless there's a damn good reason not to (and no, the circular reason of it being "top-secret" is not a good reason), it should be public domain. NASA is not a military entity, so that reasoning doesn't even apply.
Yes, life is unfair, as your sig indicates. Read further than that to see my reasoning behind good and bad laws.
I'm sure deregulation has a lot to do with the government's own security practices when they have data leaks as well, right?
Actually, yes. Contracting IT to the lowest bidder is a big problem with government data security. It really doesn't help that those who di
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Well, guess what? It's funded by taxpayers, so unless there's a damn good reason not to (and no, the circular reason of it being "top-secret" is not a good reason), it should be public domain.
One of the most fundamental military strategies is having advantages over the enemy. How can you have an advantage if they know everything you know? Sorry but you're in serious need of a reality check.
Yes, life is unfair, as your sig indicates.
Nature is anarchy in nature. Civilization is not.
Actually, yes. Contracting
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"I'm sure there are many slashdotters out there who believe that tech secrets should be free, but I don't think so. When you put effort into a project, only to have somebody else rip off your idea and implement it with none of that cost, and therefore they can implement it cheaper than you can, making your entire effort go to waste, is really underhanded and in my opinion unfair."
I take it you don't have an android phone....
Show me the questionnaire (Score:5, Informative)
I don't trust executive summaries of polling data; I want to see the entire questionnaire so I can understand the context in which the questions were asked. I'd bet that if people were asked an open-ended question about the "problems facing our country today" cyberterrorism would be lucky to get a 1% response. Here are the top items from the most recent New York Times/CBS poll [nytimes.com] released yesterday:
Economy and jobs 62%
Federal budget deficit 11
Health care 9
Same-sex marriage 7
Foreign policy 4
Immigration 2
Other/DK 4
I don't see terrorism of any sort on that list.
Even if we accept the findings of the survey, what is most striking in the results is the substantial increase in respondents who say they are "not concerned" about the threats asked about compared to a year ago.
Moreover at least one question has nothing to do with IT, the one about respondents' ability to "meet essential financial obligations." For more relevant questions, solid majorities report being only "somewhat" or "not concerned" about the security of online shopping and banking, computer viruses and spam email, and their own personal security.
The IT media has a habit of touting these self-serving studies by organizations like, in this case, Unisys as somehow providing an "objective" view of public opinion. Puh-leeze.
Who needs cyber terrorism? (Score:3)
I've said it before that all you need to take down the electrical grid is for or five teams with high powered rifles and an SUVs. Nothing you can't legally buy in any small town in the country. So how is the government going to protect against that vector?
Not necessarily unreasonable (Score:3)
_If_ cyberterrorists managed to bring down a portion of the powergrid it would probably affect more people than a "regular" attack, though since hospitals and such usually have backup power the actual number of deaths might be lower.
Though to be "fair", the cynical part of me suspects that this has nothing to do with people actually getting grip on how little a risk terrorism actually represents currently and does indeed have a lot more to do with fearmongering and a lack of understanding of computer networks in general.
Mystified by responses (Score:3)
According to TFA, the questions regarded how important is it for Presidential candidates to tell us about security threats.
My response is NOT AT ALL. There will be zero difference in their approach to security threats
The question isn't even worth considering when comparing Presidential candidates.
Ask them about what they will do that's DIFFERENT.
FTFY (Score:2)
"Well, it looks like all the fearmongering about terrorists blowing up buildings and making planes fall from the sky is working. No matter that there's no evidence of any actual risk, or that the only real issue is if anyone is stupid enough to actually permit another terrorist to take control of the plane by using explosive underwear, fear is spreading. Of course, this is mostly due to the work of a neat combination of ex-politicians/now lobbyists working for defense contractors who stand to make a ton of money from the panic — enabled by politicians who seem to have no shame in telling scary bedtime stories that have no basis in reality."
FTFY
GOOD!!! (Score:2)
Fearmongering or not, if it might mean less dollars for useless crap like the TSA and more dollars for cyber-security research (and everything related) and security-focused public awareness campaigns, that is nothing but a good thing IMO.
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Think again. After RL domestic spying, now it's VR domestic spying.
You don't really think that this means faster internet, do you?
Give us a break! (Score:2)
Blame the idiots for fear mongering (Score:2)
Not politicians. Any politician with half a brain HAS to fear monger like crazy. It is, odd as it may seem, the sensible thing to do for him. And we are to blame for that!
Why, you ask?
Well, there are four possible scenarios:
First, a politician not fear mongering and nothing happening. Then it's an obvious non-issue. Nobody is scared, nothing going on. Think aliens attacking planet earth. There is no politician warning us over it, and it does not happen.
Second, a politician crying wolf like crazy and nothing
Commerce/Cybercrime integration (Score:2)
What? We don't keep criminals out of the internet. We make them CEOs, pay them huge salaries and bonuses, and put them in charge of the companies running our communications infrastructure.
Vik :v)
Another thing to keep in mind, personal experience (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if those aren't the proper purview of a government agency, it's still the case that we have person problems very similar to the sort of cybersecurity issues.
When someone writes a story about a bunch of DoD computers getting compromised by the Red Menace (that's China BTW), you have some sympathy since your coworker Fred had similar trouble when he was porn surfing over the weekend. Their machines got hacked, just like Fred's.
OTOH, it's not likely that someone tried to kill Fred for political purposes or to inspire fear in your work group.
Re: (Score:2)
by the Red Menace
By the Yellow Menace. Red is the Soviets.
Yeah well, (Score:2)
A computer breach is WAY more likely than me getting snuffed by so religious nutter with a gun.
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If the sensitive systems are not connected to the internet (and they shouldn't be), and if standard security procedures are followed (and they should be), then the risk is really quite minimal. Not zero, of course -- but probably less (and centainly no greater) than before computerization.
Re:Fearmongering??? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the sensitive systems are connected to the internet (and they often are), and if standard security procedures are not followed (and they rarely are), then the risk is really quite significant.
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Re: (Score:3)
Let me correct that for you (again):
If the sensitive systems are connected to the internet (then you must be fucking stupid & should be fired). The easiest fix to remove a cyberthreat is to remove the "cyber" part of the equation. Hence you've cut off the threat from access.
Duh. I don't worry about cyberthreats when I'm using my old Commodore Amiga. Ya know why? Because I pulled it off the net ~10 years ago!!! (Wow what a shocking solution.)
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Yeah, but my AIM65 still has a virus from a cassette that I borrowed from a friend.
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>>>I've seen it, the cybersecurity threat is real.
No you haven't. All you have to do is remove the vulnerable device (power generator, damn flood control, whatever) off the internet, and the cybersecurity threat disappears. What you have then is just your standard run-of-the-mill threat of a spy sneaking-in and sabotaging the equipment..... a problem we've been dealing with for ~200 years. Nothing new.
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I suggest you get off the internet, sparing us all your worthless verbiage and eliminating the risk of somebody cracking your computer and stealing your credit card number.
It's win-win!
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At this rate I can soon be totally free of rights, which means I should be absolutely safe the same way that people in the countries the US are "liberating" are perfectly safe.
FTFY
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Well, after a decade of security theater that not only didn't discover a single terrorist plot that could be remotely taken serious and no terrorist attacks, the whole show gets kinda old. It's time we switch the theater.
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Bubba can fix cybersecurity just as well as he fixes terrorism.
Read again, think about it and you'll notice that he'll be just as efficient...
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SCADA is something the average computer illiterate doesn't even get. That's far, far away and in those power plants and other thingamajigs those eggheads will find a way, tinker with it and make the problem go away really soon now.
But watch them go apeshit when their porn collection is threatened by some virus bullshit story that spreads across the news.
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The people who realize the government is the only perpetrator of terrorism
Ah - you're one of those "George Bush arranged 9/11" people. Muslim by any chance?