Fighting the worms of mass destruction: Hooligans are trashing our online space. How can they be stopped?
The biggest fear is that viruses and worms will be used by terrorists to hold societies to ransom. [...]
Less than 1% of recent computer attacks originated in countries that America considers breeding grounds for terrorists; the vast majority came from inside America itself. Hackers are more likely to be geeky teens on an ego trip, or greedy crooks hoping to steal money online, than Islamic fundamentalists. [...]
many of today's problems stem from Microsoft's success in creating a virtual monopoly. Some 94% of PCs run on Windows. So nearly all the computers on the periphery of the internet, where the users are lay people rather than professional network-administrators, rely on the same software, which happens to be of Byzantine complexity. This practically invites hackers to attack these machines. A single good hit at Windows could take down the whole system. [...]
Cybercrime [...] is “not a technological problem; it's an economic problem: the incentives aren't there for smart people to solve the problem.”
