As I viewed downtown Manhattan from the air this week,
I pondered the terrorist threat of an internet worm designed
to crash the whole net, bringing down email, everything. Heres
a thought experiment for you:
How many classes of people can you think of that would
take down the internet if they had the ability to do so?
Assuming the deed can be done by one person, who
only needs to make the decision to unleash the net-killing
worm or not, with no possibility of ever being caught or
found out or blamed in any way. An example scenario
is a person walks in on a mad scientist who has developed
the worm and the screen on the CRT offers to launch the
worm by hitting return, or killing the worm by hitting any
key. {I can never find the "any" key.} What classes of
people would choose to launch the worm?
1. Taliban
2. Luddites
Ok, those were easy. Any others? How about:
3. Car dealers? They have a much harder time with
their negotiations these days since their customers have
much greater control over information than before.
4. Ministers? Their clientele can find dirt on the
church much more readily than ever, as well as
access porn, etc.
5. Anyone whose business competitors use the net
more or more effectively?
6. Spouses whose SO spends far more time on
the computer than they should?
7. Parents of young children?
8. People from countries where the net hasn't
penetrated?
9. Pretty much anyone who doesnt ever use the net?
What percentage of people would be worm launchers?
It occurred to me that if you add up all the classes of
those who would take down the net, it might be over
half of humanity, perhaps way over half. spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:13 MDT