From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:46:35 +0800
To: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: ADJ_ust
In-Reply-To: <199609301350.NAA10824@pipe2.ny1.usa.pipeline.com>
Message-ID: <3250BFB9.5C18@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


John Young wrote:
>    9-30-96. NYP:
>    "National Security Experts Plan for Wars Whose Targets and
>    Weapons Are All Digital."
>       Is the threat real, or is this just another way to win
>       scarce funds?
>       Military and intelligence officials believe that enemy
>       nations, terrorists and criminal groups either already
>       have the capability to mount information warfare strikes
>       or soon will. Criminals are quickly progressing beyond
>       the vandalism and petty theft associated with teen-aged
>       hackers and into robbery and extortion schemes ranging
>       up to millions of dollars, corporate executives and
>       private investigators say.
>       Others reply that the worst threats mentioned are mostly
>       speculation. "Information warfare is a risk to our
>       nation's economy and defense," said Martin Libicki, a
>       senior fellow at the National Defense University. "But
>       I believe we will find ways to cope with these attacks,
>       adjust and shake them off, just as we do to natural
>       disasters like hurricanes."

If they wanna bombard the net, fine.  Just as long as they don't use one 
of those HAARP gizmos, like the ground-penetrating radar, and turn it 
onto a wide area, so everyone in, say, San Jose loses all their hard 
disk info and floppy backups.  I don't know much about non-magnetic 
technology, and so I wonder what the options are for secure backup, 
short of buying an expensive safe or a spot in an underground vault?