Ashcroft's Anti-Terrorism Act may convict us all ...

John Chambers jc at trillian.mit.edu
Tue Sep 25 14:07:18 EDT 2001


Ron writes:
| I certainly wouldn't advocate trying to crack .mil boxes in any case.  But
| I would surmise that the fact script kiddies and their ilk /do/ attempt
| such hijinks helps keep the sysadmins on their toes.  If no-one even dares
| to poke at these machines, I can imagine an onerous degree of complacency
| setting in - leaving .mil boxes just flapping in the breeze.  So when the
| /real/ terrorists want to strike, they'll have easy pickings.
|
| But what do I know?

It seems to me that you have  a  pretty  good  understanding  of  the
situation.   There is a long history of "shooting the messenger" when
the topic is computer security.

Of course, the media do like to quote military sources who claim that
their systems get hit millions of times per day. I've often suspected
that they are counting pings as "attacks". I haven't seen any details
that would convince me otherwise.

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