Comments on: Panetta warns of imminent "Cyber Pearl Harbor"

By: IronEdithKidd

IronEdithKidd — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 18:12:00 +0000

Pearl clutching, maybe. Pearl Harbor, not so much.

By: acerplatanoides

acerplatanoides — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 15:12:00 +0000

Nothing several trillion to contractors won’t solve, EH LEON?

By: Daemonworks

Daemonworks — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 08:26:00 +0000

It’s the internet! Hackers can do anything now! Anything at all!

By: That_Anonymous_Coward

That_Anonymous_Coward — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 07:44:00 +0000

I will save us all for 1/10th the estimated cost of whatever it is he is pitching….

If the switch is critical… DISCONNECT IT FROM THE NET.

I’ll take my payment in gold bars….

By: Marc Montoya

Marc Montoya — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 07:17:00 +0000

oh god, who hooked all that important stuff to the internet! In the most benign circumstances, everything is just goin slower now. In the worst: DEATH!!!!!!!

By: Funk Daddy

Funk Daddy — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 02:29:00 +0000

Say buddy, where can I get one of these left-handed monkey wrenches?

By: Kevin Carson

Kevin Carson — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 00:45:00 +0000

Panetta’s mirror-imaging. An aggressor nation already DID do this. Cough cough Stuxnet cough.

By: Marc45

Marc45 — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 00:04:00 +0000

Yup. When was the last time our government warned us of an imminent terrorist attack…and it actually happened?
Someone is crying wolf methinks.

By: Florian Bösch

Florian Bösch — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:57:00 +0000

weapons of mass dumbarssery

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:59:00 +0000

Maybe he’s intentionally sending them on a wild goose chase to find a passenger train loaded with carloads of lethal chemicals. Next week he’ll be warning America that a Really Dangerous Terrorist could dismantle our entire power grid with a left-handed monkey wrench.

By: winkybb

winkybb — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:58:00 +0000

And let’s not even talk of the threat posed by sharks…with frickin’ laser beams on their heads.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:43:00 +0000

Nice list of suggestions for terrorists, Leon.

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:25:00 +0000

OK, I spoke to some rail experts.
To derail a train, you need to put something on the track, or make it go faster and then change the position of a switch. Neither of these scenarios are possible to be with “cyber tools”.
This is just more hype about cyberwarfare, which is the new WMD.

By: Vladi

Vladi — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:07:00 +0000

Good Ole U.S. of A. would never go that lo….. What’s that?….. they already have? Oh Snap!

By: Antonio Carrasco

Antonio Carrasco — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:05:00 +0000

BE AFRAID… BE VERY AFRAID.

By: marcramsey

marcramsey — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Of course, these days the “bad guys” have convenient code examples to work from, like the Stuxnet worm, thanks to the efforts of our friendly intelligence agencies…

By: RCDavis

RCDavis — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:02:00 +0000

Warns of an imminent “Pearl Harbour’?

Does he mean “an attack that the receiving nation knows is coming, and could stop if they choose to, but they need a justification to enter a war, and their citizens are not scared enough or angry enough to be easily manipulated yet?”

By: Will England

Will England — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:53:00 +0000

Been hearing this for years – since the old George Smith Crypt Newsletter at least.
http://wxexw.blogspot.com/2012/10/electronic-pearl-harbor-havent-we-heard.html

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:46:00 +0000

I will ask my colleagues about this and get back to you. I don’t think they could do a ‘Highlander 2′, at least.

By: OldBrownSquirrel

OldBrownSquirrel — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:29:00 +0000

“passenger trains loaded with lethal chemicals”

Huh? I’ve seen passenger trains, and I’ve seen freight trains loaded with lethal chemicals, but I’ve never seen a passenger train that just had a couple cars of anhydrous ammonia along for the ride. Let’s just not do that, OK? Problem solved.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:25:00 +0000

I think somebody just watched Die Hard 4 on DVD last weekend! (Or possibly Superman 3. Basically the same movie.)