BBC News | Americas (2000-01-07): Police seek key to cyber-crime

[lists@notatla.demon.co.uk]

> President Bill Clinton's new measures to protect America's computer
> systems from hackers and viruses comes amid increased global concerns
> over the threat of cyber-terrorism.
> 
> Law enforcement agencies say the electronic age has made crime more
> sinister and criminals harder to catch.
> 
> All computer networks that control critical systems, such as air
> traffic control or nuclear power plants, are potentially at risk from
> hackers and viruses.

Maybe the proponents of the above view could name a nuclear plant with
networked computer-controlled safety systems.  I'd hope they can do
this by now, having spent over 2 years spouting this idea.
(See v03007806b0e4452eba6f@[168.161.105.216] from Perry's crypto list.)
And if anybody _has_ been unwise enough to network such a thing insecurely
and have second thoughts about the safety there's an obvious solution
that doesn't involve expanding police activity.

As is well-known, the US has not commissioned a nuclear power plant
since 1979 when TMI-2 made the wrong sort of headlines on its
first (I think) birthday (and Lemon, Fonda and Douglas launched their
"China Syndrome" the same week.)   I'd be surprised if any of these
had networked computer safety systems.

Most UK nuclear stations have very simple hardware-only safety circuits,
where these safety circuits are independent of the control circuits and
are capable of (i.e. their whole purpose is) shutting a reactor down
against the wishes of the controlling humans whether they are
computer-assisted or not.

I can think of truly safety-critical computer systems but not the above.