"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
Doug Kanter wrote:

"Dave Hall" wrote in message
...
Doug Kanter wrote:

Perhaps you missed the excellent Frontline (PBS) show about 8 months
ago, in
which they discussed how vulnerable our infrastructure is to
computer
attacks.

The same people who told us that the whole thing would shut down on
Jan
1st 2000 at 12:00 Am.


Same people? Which ones, Dave? Names, please. If a person says "I was
hired
to hack into Niagara Mohawk's system and I did it in 8 hours,
undetected",
and he says this while in front of a TV camera, sitting in a NYMO
facility
with the CEO next to him, please give us a Dave Hall reason to doubt
what
the guy is saying.

Talk is cheap. Besides, you do realize that that frontline show is
almost 10 years old now? I remember seeing something like that about
that far back. The guy siting there and saying that he came one
keystroke away from shutting the whole thing down. In those 10 years
since, don't you think the power companies have had time to boost their
defenses?

Sorry, Dave, but the Frontline show which was aired this past spring
mentioned events which occurred during the past couple of years, some after
9/11. Try again.



Please cleanse your response of any nonsense related to the "millennium
bug".

The point is that there are doomsayers all over the place, who feed on
the gullible and the naive. Just because someone says that they can do
something, does not mean that they actually can.

Our DOD (Dep't of Defense) is like the old Soviet regime in one way: It's
loathe to admit when something's gone wrong. In this case, they put a
spokesperson on TV to discuss the breach of security.



For viewers who just don't get it, they emphasized that there are
quite a few utilities whose products (water, electricity, gas) can
no
longer
be controlled quickly by manually turning valves or throwing
switches.
They
interviewed people whose job it was to purposely attack computer
systems.
They succeeded more often than they would've liked.

I've been hearing this for many years. I can't believe that these
utility companies have not invested in security systems (firewalls,
encryption, virus scanning etc.), to make the possibility less likely.
Also, some former "hackers" are now making tons of money consulting
security solutions to protect companies from other hackers.

"I can't believe..." - that's the key phrase in your response.

Based on a logical assumption that when presented with the facts, that
the companies responsible would not just ignore them, and would do
something about it

Anti-virus software publishers "do something" about every virus that comes
along. A week later, another one comes along. "Doing something" about other
types of security breaches does not necessarily prevent the next one,
something which is obvious to anyone who follows the news.




I am realistic in my opinion that in the years since this vulnerability
was initially exposed, that security has been increased, rendering the
likelihood all the more remote.


God will take care of it.