RE: [OT] New Anti-Terrorism Law makes "hacking" punishable by life in prison

["M. Edward Borasky" <znmeb@aracnet.com>]

While I don't want to get involved in a comparison between the loss of some
7000 human lives in a terrorist attack on buildings with productivity lost
due to Code Red and Nimda attacks on the world's businesses, I'd like to
make two points:

1. The losses to businesses from just these two virus attacks are
*significant*, and people are angry about the fact. They're looking for
someone to blame, someone to propose a solution and tools to prevent future
attacks. I personally think stiff fines and long prison sentences for
releasing attack software into the world's business network should have been
instituted a long time ago. Life without parole seems to me quite reasonable
under the circumstances.

2. The Linux community should *not* believe that we are less vulnerable than
Microsoft! We are less vulnerable *now* only because Linux is not as
widespread as Windows. Were Linux, say, half of the market, the
vulnerability would be equal. The difference is strictly the number of
available hosts for these parasitic codes, not anything inherent in the
details of Windows or Linux, or in the organizational mechanisms (corporate
giant vs. "brutal meritocracy", closed source vs. open source, etc.).

In fact, I suspect that the open source for Linux gives creators of vicious
attack codes a *slight* advantage, since the vulnerabilities are there for
anyone to read and exploit before they are found by an alert Linux
community. And if Linux is to succeed in the enterprise, we in the community
owe it to ourselves to *enhance* that alertness -- indeed, to be more
vigilant on security issues -- even if it's at the expense of some of our
more favorite activities, like performance tweaking.
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, Chief Scientist, Borasky Research
http://www.borasky-research.net  http://www.aracnet.com/~znmeb
mailto:znmeb@borasky-research.net  mailto:znmeb@aracnet.com

Q: How do you tell when a pineapple is ready to eat?
A: It picks up its knife and fork.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
> [mailto:linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org]On Behalf Of Pavel Machek
> Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 7:23 AM
> To: Jeff V. Merkey
> Cc: Rik van Riel; Paul G. Allen; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org;
> jmerkey@utah-nac.org
> Subject: Re: [OT] New Anti-Terrorism Law makes "hacking" punishable by
> life in prison
>
>
> Hi!
>
> > When people are crashing planes into buildings and killing people
> > by the thousands, hacking laws should be tough.  The US has shut off
>
> What do hacking laws have in common with planes crashing?
>
> It was not hackers who crashed the planes, right?
> 								Pavel