IP: from 2600 -- HACKERS TO BLAME? DOUBTFUL

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

http://www.2600.com/news/2000/0209.html

HACKERS TO BLAME? DOUBTFUL

02/09/00

We feel sorry for the major Internet commerce sites that have been 
inconvenienced by the Denial of Service attacks. Really, we do. But we 
cannot permit them or anyone else to lay the blame on hackers.
So far, the corporate media has done a very bad job covering this story, 
blaming hackers and in the next sentence admitting they have no idea who's 
behind it. Since the ability to run a program (which is all this is) does 
not require any hacking skills, claiming that hackers are behind it 
indicates some sort of knowledge of the motives and people involved.

This could be the work of someone who lost their life savings to electronic 
commerce. Or maybe it's the work of communists. It could even be corporate 
America itself! After all, who would be better served by a further 
denigration of the hacker image with more restrictions on individual 
liberties?

Let's look at the headlines:

"Government sees cyber-attacks as disruption of commerce."

"Justice Department wants more funds to fight cyber crime."

Didn't take them long, did it? And later in the same story: "But the FBI 
may never know who is responsible for the cyber-attacks, due to the 
difficulty in tracing the electronic trails, a senior law enforcement 
source told CNN."

How convenient. An unseen villain. No need for any actual FACTS to be 
revealed, but plenty of blame to be cast on hackers everywhere. We find it 
to be a bit too contrived.

Whoever is responsible is either completely clueless or knows EXACTLY what 
they're doing. It's the latter that should concern hackers everywhere.