North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

  • From: Dave Israel
  • Date: Thu Sep 05 16:31:12 2002

On 9/5/2002 at 16:01:02 -0400, [email protected] said:
> > 
> > The thing is, the major cuts are not "attacks;" the backhoe operators
> > aren't gunning for our fiber (no matter how much it seems like they
> > are).  If I wanted to disrupt traffic, intentionally and maliciously,
> > I would not derail a train into a fiber path.  Doing so would be very
> > difficult, and the legal ramifications (murder, destruction of
> > property, etc, etc) are quite clear and severe.  However, if I
> > ping-bomb you from a thousand "0wn3d" PCs on cable modems, I never had
> > to leave my parents' basement, I'm harder to trace by normal police
> > methods, and the question of which laws that can be applied to me is
> > less clear. 
> 
> This fails to address how this affects someone who has no problem with legal
> ramfications - i.e. a terrorist.

Even a terrorist will tend towards things that allow him to continue
to be a terrorist.  If I can do X amount of damage, and get caught, or
do X amount of damage, and not get caught, then he'll do the second.
Even a terrorist that will die to kill will probably not die to
inconvenience.