Fearmongering About Cyberwar And Cybersecurity Is Working: American Public Very, Very Afraid
from the for-no-clear-reason dept
Well, it looks like all the fearmongering about hackers shutting down electrical grids and making planes fall from the sky is working. No matter that there's no evidence of any actual risk, or that the only real issue is if anyone is stupid enough to actually connect such critical infrastructure to the internet (the proper response to which is: take it off the internet), fear is spreading. Of course, this is mostly due to the work of a neat combination of ex-politicians/now lobbyists working for defense contractors who stand to make a ton of money from the panic -- enabled by politicians who seem to have no shame in telling scary bedtime stories that have no basis in reality.But it's all working. And, by working, I mean scaring the public unnecessarily. As reported by Wired, a new survey from Unisys finds that Americans are more worried about cybersecurity threats than terrorism, and they seem pretty worried about those threats. When asked about which security issues were the highest priority, survey respondents noted:
- Protecting government computer systems against hackers and criminals (74 percent)
- Protecting our electric power grid, water utilities and transportation systems against computer or terrorist attacks (73 percent)
- Homeland security issues such as terrorism (68 percent)
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Filed Under: cispa, cybersecurity, cyberwar, terrorism
Companies: unisys
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Just like they (and not just Americans!) believe that JFK's assassination and the Twin Towers were CIA plots... Princess Diana was a royal plot... and no doubt thanks to Newsweek's latest cover that the President is gay...
http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120514/barack-obama-newsweek-magazine-cover-the -first-gay-president-120514/20120514/?hub=CalgaryHome
The stupidity goes on and on!
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Well, at least with the JFK assassination you can point to some pretty damning connections between certain back-funded CIA groups with plenty of reasons and gusto to kill a President. The others, I tend to agree are probably over the top. But JFK....
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It's like being in JR High again, and it is fun to say.
Doesn't really matter, if it is true or not.
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More likely there will be some real bad times coming up.And yes the majority of Americans are as dumb as fuck and they are completely mindless to what they are allowing both as the Public and as stupid sold out Politicians.
You have to be pretty damn stupid to actually take Money just to pass Laws that take away everyone including your own families Rights away.
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Re: They just don't know...
There is a difference.
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illl get yaaaa
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 15th, 2012 @ 8:44am
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"Are you worried about the nefarious Chinese hackers who want very badly to make your computer explode?" Translates into "X% of people concerned about exploding computers."
It's subtle, but it's propaganda none the less. That or people are even dumber than I thought.
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Blind leading the blind
Or is that just wishful thinking?
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I'm sure this group would be proud of such a titling of fear-mongering.
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20 Offer to fix the problem if you get gobs of money
30 Pocket a hefty sum of money use the rest to
40 Goto 10
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We've been in a state of fear since World War II, possibly longer than that. Nuclear weapons, communist ideology, ecological disaster, minorities, foreigners, terrorists, cyberterrorist, serial killers, bullies, UFOs, and the RIAA. Everything is out to get us. Run! Hide! Obey!
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...And I agree 100% with this.
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Response to: jupiterkansas on May 15th, 2012 @ 9:09am
While I was there, our Information Assurance group was actually told by a VP that what we were doing was critically important for the safety of the war fighter..........huh?
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This is what I don't get about you Americans: Your constitution allows you to possess and carry guns (big, automatic ones), and you'll verbally abuse anyone that tries to point out that that might be a bad idea. Yet every time a new government manufactured boogie man shows up, you drop to your knees and beg for mercy.
Some superpower you turned out to be. Grow a spine already.
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2) The gun scares are a good example of a government-manufactured boogie man (since areas with lenient gun laws have lower crime rates), so I feel like your criticism is a non sequitur. I suppose it is inconsistent on the part of Americans, but guns have been around longer and are easier to understand than computer networks.
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Because Chinese hackers are the real danger here.
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Y2K all over again
What I found curious was that even though nearly all industry professionals who weren't providing Y2K mitigation services agreed that the problem was insanely exaggerated, people were surprisingly reluctant to actually listen to the people who knew what they were talking about and trusted the charlatans and ignorant fear-mongers instead.
Fear is the most dangerous and corrosive of human emotions.
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Re: Y2K all over again
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This would be a good time to re-read Ranum's best rant
Exercise for the reader: open up this essay in one tab, and read it. Then start going through the history of security and dataloss incidents (pick any source of them you like) and check off the mistakes that were made. I think you'll find that in every single case, at least one of the big six mistakes was made -- and it's not uncommon to find two or three of them in play. And of course the other smaller ones turn up frequently as well.
We don't need legislation. We don't need spying. We don't need the destruction of online privacy. We don't need the FBI, the NSA, or any other TLA. We need people to start paying attention, and to stop doing stupid things, like "plugging physical infrastructure controls into the Internet" or "failing to maintain an air gap between billing systems and power generation systems" or "leaving debug code/default passwords in place in production installs".
CISPA won't make people pay attention. Accountability, sometimes in the forms of "being shut down", "being fired", "being fined, with fines removed directly from corporate officers' bank accounts", will do that. And the legislation to provide that (well, most of it, that last one is wishful thinking on my part) is ALREADY IN PLACE and has been for years. It's just not being used effectively.
(An example of that last point - consider this case: Advertising company settles over alleged Facebook 'likejacking' scam. They were making $20M/year, and settled for $100K in court fees -- that's about two days' worth of revenue. And the Washington State AG signed off on this deal. I'll bet a dollar with anybody reading this that within three years the same people involved in this have dissolved the company, formed another one, moved somewhere else, and engaged in a similar scheme.)
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Re: This would be a good time to re-read Ranum's best rant
There's a lot of wisdom in this article.
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Ask the right questions
1a. Protecting government computer systems against criminals
1b. Protecting government computer systems against hackers
2a. Protecting our electric power grid, water utilities and transportation systems against terrorist attacks
2b. Protecting our electric power grid, water utilities and transportation systems against computer attacks.
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Count me in
I think I'm far more likely to come across a cybersecurity issue than terrorism, so I *should* be more worried about the former than the latter. I actively take steps to avoid "cybersecurity" problems (I firewall my home network from the Internet, check for intrusions on my machines, don't connect "important" machines (or data) to the Internet at all. What do I do to counter terrorism ? Nothing (well, I guess you could count getting groped by the TSA every now and then, but that's not through choice).
Of course the risks of any serious danger from *either* is very low, so I worry even more about crossing the road...
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WTF? I thought this was...
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Common mistake, forget about it.
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There was one news story a few years ago about Flu Shots and the scares/shortages of them that graphed the demand for Flu Shots next to the amount of news coverage Flu Shots received.
In the graph there was a 4 week period where all the news media was hyping up the dangers of flu and why you HAD to get the flu shot, or else you might die or something! The demand for Flu Shots was off the charts during those 4 weeks, but before and after those 4 weeks it was only like 1/10th of that.
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Also, I have no actual knowledge one way or the other, but I would be surprised if plenty of critical infrastructure was not connected to the internet. The benefits of remote access (remote testing and maintenance for example) are so large that it outweighs the risk. Obviously, it would require proper security precautions, but disconnection from the internet shouldn't be necessary.
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She ran over to my cube short of breathe exclaiming that someone was stealing her identity.
Not stupid, the things she does in excel is nothing short of inspired. She's in her late 20s. Uses computers daily... she and so many other users just consider the parts of computers they don't use or understand fully as magic.
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No Confidence
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I know freedom is a tough gal but if they shove anything more down her hole she might bust..
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Yeah. You remember Y2K, right? And those myths were not even an official position.
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Statistics!
Several points to consider:
1. The survey was released by a branch of Unisys that sells security technology to the government and major corporations. Ad hominem isn't enough to disqualify their results on its own, but Unisys releasing a report that says cyber-security isn't important would be like the cigarette industries releasing a report that says tobacco is carcinogenic.
2. The survey is based on data collected from 1,005 phone surveys. For reference, that's about 0.0003% of the US population. Assuming that the surveys were conducted on a truly representative sample of the populace (which I doubt), that's still such a low number that a lot of their results are likely to be pure noise.
3. The Wired report in question was referring to a single, supplemental question attached to the larger survey. The question asked what priorities our government should set; the report listed the top 5 responses. It did not list all the possible responses, nor does it show respondents' relative rankings, nor does it provide a detailed breakdown of how people responded. This is not, in itself, indicative of bias -- but it does mask any bias that would be there. Suppose you gave a survey asking people which they'd prefer as a pet: a cat, or a rabid wolverine. If 99% vote cat, that doesn't mean that 99% of the population likes cats; it means that 99% of the population ranks cats higher than they rank rabid wolverines. Unfortunately, if you publish your results without including the wolverine question, this is not particularly obvious to people reviewing your results.
4. What's particularly odd about the responses cited by Wired is that they don't seem to match up particularly well with the rest of the survey data. According to a previous question on the survey, 19% of the respondents are 'not concerned' about national security at all. A later question then claims that 73% of the respondents think we need to protect our power grids against terrorists. It seems a reasonable assumption that the people who fear terrorists in the power grids are at least 'somewhat concerned' about national security, so that means that the 73% who prioritize infrastructure security come from the 81% who are at least a little bit concerned about national security. By this, we can conclude that over 90% of people who are even 'somewhat concerned' about national security think the government should prioritize securing the infrastructure. To me, this number seems outrageously high; I challenge anyone to get 90% agreement on any meaningful political issue. I'd suspect that either they didn't pick a representative sample of the populace, or they're lying with statistics.
Anyway, I think it's safe to say that the numbers contained in the actual survey are bunk. The fact that Wired is providing sensationalist coverage of what's essentially a meaningless non-issue is....pretty much just what Wired always does.
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When you work in the IT field
It doesn't strike me unusual at all that people are freaking out about nothing. It seems most people can't tell the difference between Windows and Office or disk space and memory. All you need to do is make up a situation where there could be a problem that threatens them, mix in a few PC terms and bam, instant fear.
It's kind of like PC Madlibs.
Did you know RAM Terrorists were trying to CPU your Microsoft? Unless we pass an Apple bill, they'll internet ALL of our ethernets.
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Consider the Children!, I mean Source
Who didn't know the outcome of that study before it began?
I am amazed at how many blogs have accepted that survey as a valid data source.
It's enough to make old media look reputable by comparison.
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Fearmongering? LOL
No, you. Hacking drones and shooting missiles on govt offices is way more fun. The anons of the Anonymous says otherwise though.
COD:Black Ops 2 anyone?
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Very fitting song.
Just saying.
Nothing to be afraid of except karma and the governments assassins.
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Don't buy the hype.
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Bona-fide threats
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Presentation on Cyber Hype
http://www.belowgotham.com/SFSU-2010-Blunden-Slides.pdf
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The last time we said terrorism couldn't happen in the USA
Of course, all of this is sensationalism.
Terrorism is real, but the government is exploiting it to control people. Don't think it's not real though.
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sample survey question
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