Re: Terrorism Hysteria on the Net

[Dale Drew <ddrew@mci.net>]

At 07:21 PM 6/10/96 -0500, snow wrote:
>On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, John Young wrote:

>> "You bring me a select group of hackers and within 90 days I'll bring this
>> country to its knees, " says Jim Settle, retired director of the FBI's
>> computer crime squad. 
>
>	Give me 15 well trained soldiers(near special forces level) and I
>can do it in less than 60 days. Without touching a computer. 
>

To understand where "They" think they are coming from, you have to compare
Apples-to-Apples.  The concern is the medium of choice; the Internet and it's
high availability of anonymity, coupled with its access to large amounts of
computer systems available via one virtual channel.

A well orchestrated and well researched attack by the right folk, as the thought
process goes, could in-fact, potentially affect large amounts of critical
computer systems within a short period of time. And while the government
has inroads available to identify potential physical terrorists threats,
they do not feel as prepared for the virtual ones.

===============================================================
Dale Drew                                MCI Telecommunications
Manager                                    internetMCI Security
                                                    Engineering
Voice:  703/715-7058                    Internet: ddrew@mci.net
Fax:    703/715-7066                MCIMAIL: Dale_Drew/644-3335