I am not a tech guy at all, if it wasn’t for my buddy Jeremy I wouldn’t have this blog, I don’t know a bit from a byte and have no idea of how the stuff I write on this screen gets to you the reader. I use macs predominantly but I use PC’s to trade and to do the video’s for StockTwitsTV.
Today Twitter was attacked by some unknown entity in what is known as a Denial of Services Attack. That’s been explained to me as a concerted effort to flood the computers that host Twitter with so much data that they cannot perform their function of connecting you and me for our 140 character interactions.
I have been instructed by the good folks who installed and manage my trading platform that I should under no circumstances use that computer to surf the web. Even with state of the art anti virus, anti malware, and anti who the hell knows they cannot guarantee the safety of my data or the continuity of operation if I do.
Why is this? And what does it have to do with todays twitter attack?
There are in this world a group of characters who spend a lot of time attempting for nefarious purposes to obtain our information, steal our money, or disrupt our lives by using computer technology against us. They range from the stereotypical zit faced teenage loser to organized crime groups, to enemy government agencies. Now I know you already know this and we all do to one degree or another.
Here’s my point, it’s no longer, and in fact hasn’t been for a long time, some kid hacking into a company site to play some new game. There are people bent on serious malace who are a serious threat to everyone. Nobody short of Ted Kaszinsky in his deep woods hovel is not connected in some ways to the internet. No business, no commerce, no medicine, no anything in this modern era is not connected. When these miscreants do their misdeeds it effects everybody and in some cases it can make peoples lives miserable. It’s time to stop treating these internet attacks as minor insults and recognize the threat they are to our society and stomp them out. Make a real effort to catch these clowns and punish them in meaningful ways. Robbing my bank account via computerized attack is akin to breaking into my house and robbing me, the punishment should be the same and the effort to mete out that punishment should be the same.
Here are my suggestions:
1) Put a ransom on the hacker, catch a hacker win a prize. For every deviant hacker there a computer geek at MIT who wishes he could be a cyber sheriff. Turn these guys loose on the bad guys and make it pay off for them if they catch them. If the geek at Cal Tech catches a bad guy buy him a better hard drive and throw in a hooker, make it a public spectacle and you’ll have these guys beating down the doors looking for the bad guys.
2) Long prison sentences for the cyber criminals, in nasty texas jails run by that Joe Arpaio guy. But offer them the chance to reduce their sentence significantly if they catch other hackers. And make it very public, pillory these slime balls, and make heroes out of them if they turn their efforts to the good of society.
3) There is probably already a government agency to combat this stuff if the attacks are against the defense department or the air traffic control system, but I don’t know it’s name. I should, but it isn’t my fault, they don’t advertise. We need Eliot Ness out there in front of this popping off a few rounds with his Tommy gun and hanging with super models
4) if it’s an enemy government we need to consider it an act of war and perform a denial of service attack on them either with cyber weaponry or old fashion John Wayne and Audie Murphy stuff.
The next time I have to go 2 or 3 hours without StockTwits I want to see the cyber equivalent of Dresden circa 13 Feb 1945, or I am gonna be pissed.
