have we had any "cyber-terrorist" attacks in the U.S.?

[Alan Olsen]

On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, dmolnar wrote:

> I can think of two terrorist attacks on U.S. soil without too much
> difficulty: the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City. 
> 
> In both cases, computers and "internet" loosely defined played a minor
> organizational role. McVeigh used AOL, and the Trade Center 
> bombers had some plans on a floppy disk. 
> 
> Have we had any instance of "cyber terrorism" -- you know, the kind of
> awful scenario which most people reading this could cook up without too
> much difficulty. or is the question not well formed since if it was a
> successful attack, we wouldn't know?

There are always hints about such a thing supposedly happening. When you
press for details, it becomes very hard to find anything resembling actual
incidents.

The "Cyber Terrorism" scare is just that. A scare.

It is a way for various government agencies to justify their insane
budgets.

I expect we will have a few real incidents in the near future, but I
expect they will be like the rash of cases a few years ago involving
supposed Anthrax attacks.  Lots of cases where fake anthrax attacks were
supposedly staged. (Conviently in public places where people would find
them before hand.)  No real indication of the real thing.

I expect if we do have a "Cyber Pearl Harbor" it will be from some
government agency (probably the FBI) trying to work up the funding to
"protect" us.

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