Movie Plot Threat in Vancouver
The idiocy of this is impressive:
A Vancouver Police computer crime investigator has warned the city that plans for a citywide wireless Internet system put the city at risk of terrorist attack during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
The problem? Well, the problem seems to be that terrorists might attend the Olympic games and use the Internet while they’re there.
“If you have an open wireless system across the city, as a bad guy I could sit on a bus with a laptop and do global crime,” Fenton explained. “It would be virtually impossible to find me.”
There’s also some scary stuff about SCADA systems, and the city putting some of its own service on the Internet. Clearly this guy has thought about the risks a lot, just not with any sense. He’s overestimating cyberterrorism. He’s overestimating how important this one particular method of wireless Internet access is. He’s overestimating how important the 2010 Winter Olympics is.
But the newspaper was happy to play along and spread the fear. The photograph accompanying the article is captioned: “Anyone with a laptop and wireless access could commit a terrorist act, police warn.”
John • February 21, 2007 7:18 AM
Well.. wireless access without proper authentication and accountability is a real threat. I mean if someone goes around hacking into servers and causing general havoc and the organization that manages the infrastrucutre has no means to pinpoint who is doing it, they could (or should?) be held responsible.
Of course this could be greatly minimized by just limiting the acess do certain protocolos, and to deploy some filtering techniques to those too.