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JUST as I was ready to celebrate surviving 2000 without being stung by the Y2K bug, government techno-wonks are revving up for battle against a slippery new cyber-peril. Cyber-terror
doesn’t scare meThey say our enemies are targeting us for information warfare -- electronic attacks against our personal computers, power grids, financial networks, transportation systems and telecommunications services.
They point to the "Love Letter" virus that paralyzed computers for a few days in May and hack attacks in February that briefly shut down giant commercial Web sites as Yahoo!, Amazon.com, CNN and eBay.
Experts warn that in the hands of hostile governments, political terrorists, drug lords and criminal cartels, cyber-weapons could replace nuclear devices and biological agents as the primary threat to U.S. security.
To fight this menace, they've done what government does best -- create agencies with stupid names to produce leaden reports that keep federal file cabinets firmly anchored to the floor.
So far, we've got the National Infrastructure Protection Center, the Cyberincident Steering Group and the Federal Intrusion Detection Network. They're working on a National Plan for Critical Infrastructure Protection
After reading the warnings, I'm puzzled by one thing: Exactly what is the potential catastrophe here?
Basically they're saying that when our enemies attack, instead of being vaporized by an atomic bomb or infected by some horrible disease, all I have to worry about is losing the opportunity to compulsively shop eBay.
It sounds like a trade-off I can live with. I'll burn candles until they get the power grid back up.
It's not that I have anything against technology. Email, for instance, has saved me time and put me back in touch with nearly everybody who has mattered in my life.
Lately, though, I can barely find the few emails that mean anything among the unsolicited come-ons for seedy services. Today alone, I had 47 pieces of junk mail I could have lived without if cyber-terrorists had chosen this day to strike.
Just because President Clinton bombed Belgrade, wild-eyed Yugoslavs think they have the right to bombard me with "Urgent Kosovo Alerts!" about everything that happens in that miserable country. I was ready to surrender long before Milosevic threw in the towel.
Online sleuths entreat me to "Spy on Your Neighbors!!" Sheesh. Most Americans don't care enough about their neighbors to go out in the street and introduce themselves, much less investigate them online.
ANSWER the right email and you can "Get Rich Without Working, Leaving Your House or Investing Wisely!!!" All you have to do is spam others with phony advice on getting rich. Soon such endeavors will make up 90 percent of our Gross Domestic Product.
Sex peddlers claim to have "The Hottest Porn on the 'Net!!!!" Want them to turn you on? Send them your Visa card and let them turn it on like a faucet.
If that doesn't lather you up, there are always the offers: "Buy your Viagra Online!!!!!" To be sure you're medically fit, you have to answer questions from certified physicians. Clinical questions such as, "Are you an old horndog?" "Are you willing to send us $75 for this exam and $179.99 for five pills?"
The truth is starting to dawn on me. This junk email isn't the stuff the government needs to protect from cyber-terrorism. It IS the cyber-terrorism.
Which suggests a job for the folks at the Federal Intrusion Detection Network: If they want to make themselves useful, why don't they figure out a way to clear this garbage out of my inbox?
David Shapiro is managing editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at dshapiro@starbulletin.com.
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