Teen Nearly Killed us All

[Roland]

"Uh oh, my computer is infected with a virus! Musta been terrorists!"

I almost snorted my fruit punch. :D

And I agree, their reaction was a TAD overzealous. But still, you have to figure, it WAS a weapons research facility. ANY sort of abnormal activity in such a place is bound to put someone on edge. That's the very nature of the game. I sleep better knowing that those people are just a little bit paranoid, as opposed to not being paranoid enough.

Now, the government itself, OTOH... ;)

[Doc]

So now it's "Terrorists."

When I was younger, long long ago, we blamed bloody everything on the "Damn Dirty Reds" and "Them Damn Chinese."


If say, while watching the television, and it became much fuzzier then the usual fuzziness, the Reds were responsible. Somehow. Those damn Russians were screwing with American TV signals just to dick around with our heads. If there was a particularly nasty cold or a flu going around, the Ruskies had sent a bug over to kill us all. The Commies were out to get us.


Manufactured Boogeymen. You know, that sounds just as bad as Wardrobe Malfunction. Anyhoo, there seems to be a lot of Manufactured Boogeymen. Oh the Indians are coming. Oh no the coloured folks out in the fields are getting uppity. Oh no the British are coming. Oh drats the Spanish are coming. Oh nuts the bloody Irish keep coming. Oh no the Reds are coming. Oh no the Hackers are taking over. Oh no there are terrorists around every corner.

Humans as a species seem to need a boogeyman. From in the closet and under the bed, to out in our daily lives and straight into our heads. (Hey that rhymes)

Having been Manufactured into a Boogeyman my self, my opinion might be biased. So kiss my grits.

[Wiccan]

Yes i have to agree... it was stupid....

But there one network that no one can take down at one time , not one single person can take down the one network that we all need, can you guess...

I mean people have tried with viruses and other things but always failed.

Hnow when was they very first virus written..

[kandrathe]

I think it is mostly ignorant rednecks who spread viruses (computer or no). :D I'm just kidding of course. But, you'd be surprised how many unsecured small business e-mail, web or counter-strike servers are out their acting as open proxies or platforms just ready for hackers to attack from.

Manufactured Boogeymen. You know, that sounds just as bad as Wardrobe Malfunction. Anyhoo, there seems to be a lot of Manufactured Boogeymen. Oh the Indians are coming. Oh no the coloured folks out in the fields are getting uppity. Oh no the British are coming. Oh drats the Spanish are coming. Oh nuts the bloody Irish keep coming. Oh no the Reds are coming. Oh no the Hackers are taking over. Oh no there are terrorists around every corner.

Humans as a species seem to need a boogeyman. From in the closet and under the bed, to out in our daily lives and straight into our heads. (Hey that rhymes)

We agree. My theory is that xenophobia is genetically programmed, and forces us to form social bonds with our "tribe" to unite against the other "tribes". We have not evolved beyond this need to form social groups. So, just as our impulses for violence are conciously kept at bay, our impulses for xenophobia can only be kept in check with self awareness.

For me the journey began when I was 17 in my freshman year at university. I realized that much of what I had been taught by my parents and teachers was just plain wrong. So, I felt I needed to re-examine everything I had been taught and rebuild my understandings from my own base of investigation. During this journey I came to truly see what baggage is heaped upon us by society, and of course I questioned all of it. In the beginning I was focused on understanding the primal self and then resolving human base instincts with the modern concept of a "civilized" human. At first I was resentful of the burden that society places upon the individual, forcing them to conform to a set of norms dictated by tradition and superstition. But, as I age that resentment has abated and while I still reject much of the "rules" of the greater social construct, I have begun to see where some social constructs (like "tribe") are useful.

That is pretty abstract, so here are some tangible questions I ponder.

Why do we all endeavor to show up to work at the same time? Why do we value (based on salary) engineers or sales people, higher than say teachers, or scientists. Then there is the plethora of libertarian issues I subscribe to relating to the "states" ability to control the lives of "free" people. Why do we so willingly give up so many of our freedoms? I have huge questions(reservations) about human motivations surrounding consumption and disregard for the environment. It would be hard for people to accept this concept, but I would rather we forward a concept of land stewardship rather than land ownership. I think it would be good for people to be a little sad and remorseful when they need to cut down a 300 year old tree.

Anyway, that is just the tip of many icebergs. Now, for me to wrap this all back up into the topic we are discussing. Terrorism and "evil" hackers.

I like to distinguish between hackers (like me) who use their powers constructively, rather than those who use their powers to destroy. I believe that their are cases where the motivations of the writers of evil computer viruses or worms are political. At least in the sense where they believe they can cause social disruption and hurt "big companies" economically. In a way, it is the same as what terrorists are trying to accomplish in their political struggles. Using limited resources and infiltration, terrorists seek to cause catastrophic harm and gain attention from the media, and cause fear amoung their target population.

I believe our cultural impulse in general is to try to adapt to whatever "ripples" occur in our daily lives. Over time the culture assimilates the minority counter culture, or a revolution occurs. But, in order to assimilate the minority counter culture, the majority culture must "accept" or set aside their objections to the agenda of the minority counter culture. I won't use the Palestinians, because there are too many conflicting agenda's in that struggle. A better case for my illustration is Ireland (I think). This was a terrorist driven counter culture movement who's aim was to achieve autonomy, and self rule. Over time the majority of people (in Ireland and England) thought it would be easier to just find a way to accomodate the IRA's demands. Back to "evil" hackers. I'm not sure our society understands their agenda, if they even have one beyond causing grief to the multitudes. In a way an ultimate way to say FU, to the world.

As for Fermilab; I think they just needed to take a "worst case" scenario position in their risk assessments. Not a bad approach in general, but it is usually the most expensive.

[Roland]

"Why do we value (based on salary) engineers or sales people, higher than say teachers, or scientists."

For the most part, Engineers and Sales People's salaries aren't payed by our taxes. Teachers' salaries are. ;)

And, for the record, sales people have HORRIBLE "salaries". In fact, "sales" and "salary" don't even go together. It's an oxymoron. If you're in Sales, you're not on salary. If you're on salary, and in the Sales world, you're a manager. And often you make less as a manager than as a salesman! Go figure! (Commission-based sales only, mind you, unless you count over-time, which managers don't get.)

And, for the record, I share your pondering. :)

[kandrathe]

And, for the record, sales people have HORRIBLE "salaries". In fact, "sales" and "salary" don't even go together. It's an oxymoron. If you're in Sales, you're not on salary. If you're on salary, and in the Sales world, you're a manager. And often you make less as a manager than as a salesman! Go figure! (Commission-based sales only, mind you, unless you count over-time, which managers don't get.)

I guess my experience has been more with large companies. Some examples, a manufacturing company where I worked in the mid 80's had 200 sales people. Their base salary was 60K, and they were each given a proven one million dollar territory based on prior years sales. Their base commision (on the million) would bring their compensation up to $100K, but then they had escalating rates after that. The top sales people earned between $250K and $300K (more than the CEO). For a large consulting firm I worked at, the sales people earned a base salary of 40K, and then 13% of any placement (e.g. one project I led had 15 consultants for 9 months with an average billing rate of $75/hour - The salesperson earned $5860/week, or ~$211K for that one placement.) Retail is another kettle of squid, though.

For the most part, Engineers and Sales People's salaries aren't payed by our taxes. Teachers' salaries are.

Maybe the teachers salaries should be paid from a separate source. Or, citizens should be more involved in taking control of their local governments, to insure that the compensation of a teacher is higher than the city garbage collector (not that garbage collectors are unimportant).

[Nystul]

Maybe the teachers salaries should be paid from a separate source. Or, citizens should be more involved in taking control of their local governments, to insure that the compensation of a teacher is higher than the city garbage collector (not that garbage collectors are unimportant).

In my experience, citizens are more than happy to pay the necessary expenses for garbage collection. The same is usually not true for education. Thus, lack of citizen control is not the problem. School funding is actually higher when the citizens at large do not take control. This is why school taxes often have to be put up during special or primary elections when the majority of the citizens are less likely to go and vote. For schools to get the funding they want, they have to rely on those who do not have kids in the school system not being motivated enough to show up and shoot down their tax increases.

Garbage collectors could easily be considered more important than teachers anyway (they certainly are in the short term; the long term is harder to say). But the reason they get higher pay is because the demand of people wanting to be garbage collectors is not so high, while the need to have them is not very negotiable.

[CelticHound]

I was working at a defense company in the late 80's. We had a standing joke for whenever anything went wrong. We'd exclaim that Muammar Qadhafi must have sneaked into the building the night before and sabotaged things.

-- CH