The ignorance in the blurb is also exhibited - no, trumpeted! - in this
line:
>supermarket shelves could empty, ATM cards may stop
>working and even manufacturing could come to a standstill as a result
Supermarket inventory systems are not Internet-based. ATM machines still use
leased line connections, for the very good reason that banks don't trust the
Internet for ATM transactions. And manufacturing as an Internet-dependent
activity?
Richard Chirgwin
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roger Clarke [mailto:Roger.Clarke@xamax.com.au]
> Sent: Thursday, 28 February 2002 16:07
> To: link@www.anu.edu.au
> Subject: [LINK] ABC Catalyst Tonight: 'Internet Meltdown'
>
>
>
> http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/promo.htm
> says there's a segment tonight on:
>
> "Internet Meltdown
>
> "Graham Phillips reports on a new weapon in the computer hacker's
> arsenal - so powerful it could bring down the entire Internet.
> They're called Worms and both computers hackers and IT experts agree
> Worms are so virulent they could can infect the entire internet
> within 20 minutes of release, leaving no time for antivirus companies
> or people to react. The result of Internet meltdown would be
> disastrous - supermarket shelves could empty, ATM cards may stop
> working and even manufacturing could come to a standstill as a result"
>
>
> The comments I sent to Catalyst were:
>
> That blurb is so bad that I think it harms Catalyst's credibility.
>
> The concept of the worm was invented in John Brunner's 'The Shockwave
> Rider', published in 1975. The first real one was in 1988-89. It's
> simply a virus that's propagated over a network rather than through
> discrete media like floppy disks or CD-ROMs.
>
> The vast majority of worms take advantage of criminally negligent
> deficiencies in the default settings of Microsoft products, plus
> large numbers of bugs in the same products, and directly affect only
> those people who are silly enough to use them. That's such a large
> population that, yes, explosions of traffic have occurred on several
> occasions, and it's conceivable that worse can happen. But there are
> some circuit-breakers in the system, and in any case 'meltdown' is a
> silly expression to use to describe the phenomenon. It's a lot more
> like traffic congestion, an extensive traffic jam, or maybe gridlock.
>
> Please feel free to pass this on to whomever perpetrated a very poor
> piece of promo text.
>
>
> ["On mature reflection", the adjective 'vast' in the first line of my
> third para. is under-researched hyperbole - which is what I'm
> accusing the author of the blurb of doing. Just call me 'black pot'
> ... ]
>
> [Declaration of interest: the reason I became aware of the 'Internet
> Meltdown' segment is that I was interviewed for another segment
> that's on tonight, on facial recognition technology. So feel free to
> accuse me of blatant self-promotion (:-)} ]
>
> --
> Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
>
> Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
> Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
> mailto:Roger.Clarke@xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/
>
> Visiting Fellow Department of Computer Science
> The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA
> Information Sciences Building Room 211 Tel: +61 2 6125 3666
>
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