"Inflict[ing] terror by killing people" is not the only tactic terrorists use. Attacks can be anything from a SPAM flood to a DDoS attack to taking down dozens of servers or routers utilizing known vulnerabilities. Targets can be bridges, buildings, etc. and don't necessarily result in loss of life. Disrupting communications channels is a common tactic used to attack the "enemy", so keeping a close eye on and protecting key communications infrastructure is a valid goal. Further, It doesn't take "dozens" of backhoes nor dozens of sites to cause a significant disruption. Imagine if 60 Hudson and 111 8th were to go down at the same time? Finding means to mitigate this threat is not frivolously spending the taxpayer's money, IMO; although perhaps removing fiber maps is not the best way to address this. -- rsw. On Thu, Jan 19, 2006 at 12:51:00PM -0500, Robert Boyle <robert@tellurian.com> wrote:
At 12:01 PM 1/19/2006, you wrote: This is really stupid. Assuming the terrorist actually have the dozens of backhoes needed to completely erase meaningfull internet connectivity in north america, they would probably prefer to use them to smash cars and kill people on the interstate highways or something.
Terrorist inflict terror by killing people, not by forcing internet explorer to display "page cannot be displayed".
Let us not assume that murderous terrorist are as dumb as people in DHS.
Agreed. However, if you disappear now, we'll know why! :P
-Robert
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