cyber-"terrorism"?

[Ross Anderson]

> what i'm wondering is - is it *really* possible to make a concerted
> cyber-terrorist attack via the internet? or is this just rhetoric -

There is a lot of rhetoric. For example, at last week's conference on
economic crime, NCIS director John Abbott told an audience made up
largely of cops and prosecutors that organised crime made up 8% of the
UK economy. The following day, at a session discussing IT, a more
junior NCIS chap said 13%. They were equating the whole of the black
economy with organised crime. Other talks claimed that organised crime
and terrorism are inextricably linked. So next time you pay the
plumber 50 quid in cash you're either a Mafiosi or a terr. If you
avoid VAT by buying from an Isle of Man website you're a cyberterr.

Some governments have a more realistic view internally. When Bush
moved Dick Clark from being the terrorism czar to being the
cyber-terrorism czar, he went from being someone who could order
submarines and satellites around to someone with nine staff. And the
view among Whitehall cynics is that cyberterrorism, like information
warfare before it, is `just a remarketing by the agencies of the stuff
they've been doing for sixty years anyway'

For a good page debunking cybersecurity hype, see

   http://vmyths.com/

For the economics and security page, see

   http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/econsec.html

Ross