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An Electrifying Hoax
9/29/99
Mike Hudack
Editor-in-Chief
A CORRECTION REGARDING THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN ISSUED. PLEASE READ IT BEFORE CONTINUING.
"Tomorrow I will leave Belgium without power, and that is not so difficult," an anonymous "computer hacker" told a Danish newspaper. Both the newspapers in Belgium and news sources on the Net (Excite News, Yahoo! News, Reuters) labeled the terrorist a hacker. In reality, however, all this "hacker" did was make a couple phone calls.
The terrorist threatened to attack between 1:30 and 3:30pm on Thursday Danish time to take the network down. Some time later he said he decided not to do it. How convenient.
It seems that nowadays it doesn´t take anything more than a phone and an attitude to be called a "computer hacker" and feared by thousands. It´s true that every threat has to be taken seriously -- it´s been a policy for everyone´s protection for years. At the same time though, restraint must be practiced.
On a side note, Reuters quoted a spokesperson for the Belgian electric company as saying, "the systems that pilot Electrabel's power distribution were developed specifically for the company," implying security through obscurity. Tsk, tsk. |
