[iwar] Perception management in the news
From: Fred Cohen
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Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 06:49:31 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: [iwar] Perception management in the news
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Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 20:40:29 -0400
From: cybercrimes@theMezz.com
Subject: 'America's Most Wanted' site said DoS'ed after cyber-crime broadcast
'America's Most Wanted' site said DoS'ed after cyber-crime broadcast
America's Most Wanted host John Walsh urged his viewers on Saturday
night to help "take down" those responsible for the distributed denial
of service (DDoS) attacks which briefly crippled numerous high-profile
Web sites back in February.
The low-brow crime-busters show from Fox Television draws a large
audience with its melodramatic and bloody crime re-enactments and
psychobabbling criminal profiles. Walsh has even taken to the gimmick
of introducing segments from within a moving helicopter to cultivate the
illusion of his immediate response to the pleas of frustrated policemen
throughout the nation.
This weekend's show included a typically overblown segment on cyber
terrorism, during which Walsh fretted about fifteen-year-old DDoS
suspect Mafiaboy while treating viewers to images of violently flattened
buildings and a tank firing its gun in a (presumably Middle-Eastern)
desert.
"Tonight let's take down some cyber terrorists," Walsh urged, and gave
an account of the devastating ruin caused by the DDoS attacks.
The show's viewers are constantly reminded to rat on their neighbours by
phoning tips via a toll-free line. "The FBI believes the [DDoS] hackers
are bragging in chat rooms, so the same tool they use to attack may be
the key to catching them," Walsh said.
The Register was not aware that IRC and Instant Messenger have the
potential to launch retaliatory DDoS attacks. We learn something new
every day.
Walsh also interviewed FBI Director Louis Freeh, who struggled visibly
to maintain an air of dignity in spite of the situation, and NIPC
Director Michel Vatis, whose demeanour towards Walsh was a good deal
more indulgent and affable. Both men repeated their core messages
regarding the devastating potential of cyber crime, which we have
reported ad nauseum, so we'll just spare our readers another re-hash
today.
Most interestingly, an AMW spokesman interviewed by SecurityFocus.com
said that the show's Web site went off-line following the broadcast,
though he couldn't explain why. "Maybe those hackers decided to punish
us," he is quoted as saying.
Of course it could be a coincidence, but if not it will undoubtedly
convince the programme's producers that malicious Script Kiddies really
are in a league with Timothy McVeigh and Osama Bin Laden, a conviction
towards which they already show strong inclinations.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/000516-000004.html
________________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 20:41:35 -0400
From: cybercrimes@theMezz.com
Subject: Bill Clinton associates Love Bug with terrorism
Bill Clinton associates Love Bug with terrorism
Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton fretted about cyber-security during a US
Coast Guard Academy commencement speech which he delivered in
Connecticut today.
"This is a highly appropriate place to give what is, for me, a very nostalgic address. It is the last speech I will ever give as President to a graduating class of one of our military service academies," he said in his most polished tones of affected sincerity.
He then launched in to the business of promoting his pet concerns:
applauding the global economy, coddling China and praising its "working
for human rights and political freedoms," and condemning the scourge of
international terrorism, on which altar, naturally, anonymity and
privacy in a wired world will have to be sacrificed.
"I have requested now some $9 billion for counter-terrorism funding in
the 2001 budget. That's 40 percent more than three years ago," the
President boasted, and then solicited support to add $300 million on top
of it.
"To protect America from cyber-crime and cyber-terrorism, we have
developed a national plan for cyber-security, with both public and
private sector brains putting it together. We're asking for increased
funding to implement this plan to protect our vital networks. That's
something else I hope you will support."
The extra money is earmarked for cyber-security initiatives involving
Internet monitoring and forensic data handling, primarily by the FBI.
"Today and for the foreseeable tomorrows we and especially you will face
a fateful struggle between forces of integration and harmony and the
forces of disintegration and chaos," Clinton told the cadets.
"Technology can be a servant of either side, or, ironically, both," he
warned.
The President cited the Love Bug e-mail worm as an example of the new
and horrifying threats to American national security looming on the
horizon.
"Today, critical systems like power structures, nuclear plants, air
traffic control, computer networks, they're all connected and run by
computers."
"Two years ago, we had an amazing experience in America and around the
world - we saw that a single, failed electronics link with one satellite
[could] disable pagers, ATMs, credit card systems, and TV and radio
networks all over the world. That was an accident. The Love Bug was
not an accident."
Heaven's no. It was a dastardly assault on the very underpinnings of
decent civilisation. Imagine the damages: it caused e-commerce sites to
slow; it forced sysadmins to wake up and filter malicious attachments;
it even compelled Micro$oft to take time out from its heavy public
relations schedule to fix its crummy e-mail client. Why, it was a
veritable electronic Pearl Harbour.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/000517-000031.html
________________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 22:14:45 -0400
From: cybercrimes@theMezz.com
Subject: Forget love - it's dial-a-bug
Forget love - it's dial-a-bug
Date: 19/05/2000
Computer viruses that infect mobile phones could create even more havoc
than the Love Bug, industry experts say.
Hackers are thought to be developing malicious programs that target the
new generation of Internet-linked phones and palm-top computers.
Mobile phone viruses could record conversations and forward them to
others, store and pass on phone numbers and generate large telephone
bills.
Mr Charles Palmer, a British specialist in network security and
cryptography at IBM, told New Scientist magazine
there was a "huge potential" for computer viruses to spread via Internet
Wap (wireless application protocol) phones and personal organisers.
The danger would increase as mobiles become more sophisticated and
programmable, he said.
In the case of a Wap phone, the viruses could dial out, start recording
software for personal surveillance, or wipe out the contents of files.
Avi Ruben, a specialist in Internet security at the AT&T laboratories in
Florham Park, New Jersey, said mobile phones would soon have many more
applications to make them easier to use.
"If somebody sends you a telephone number by email, you want to be able
to click on that number to dial it," he said. Such an application would
open the way to the threat of viruses.
The Telegraph, London
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