21st Nov 2002
West Wing: Cyber Terrorism
Was minding my own business this afternoon and my Internet connection went down. Who knows why. Presumably something screwed up at Road Runner, my ISP. (Years ago I came up with he motto “I never met an ISP I didn’t dislike,” although Road Runner has probably been the best of the lot so far.)
Got me thinking of an episode I’d like to see of the West Wing. Josh comes into his office in the morning and asks Donna if she’d had a reply to her email from so-and-so senator or whatever, and she comments that the Internet is down. He says, “What do you mean the Internet is down?” She says it went down half an hour ago, the techies are looking into it. “They think it’s our ISP.” “Our ISP?” he says “Who the hell is the White House’s ISP?”
Turns out, it’s not just the White House, it’s everywhere. The Internet is down. The whole thing.
Remember that great Nike commercial (what other kinds of Nike commercials are there?) during the Y2K hysteria showing the guy jogging on January 1, 2000 with stop lights blinking, cash shooting out of ATMs, missles doing curlycues in the background? A whole episode of West Wing like that.
Cyber Terrorism scares me, mainly because it seems we’re incredibly vulnerable yet no one really talks about it. I’m only surprised it hasn’t happened bad already.
In my case, however, it turned out to be just my ISP (back on half an hour later).
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