SCI/TECH: Internet Meltdown Predicted for Tomorrow (8/26)

Originally posted by Genya
Already covered here for views. And, as the "attack" seems to be directed to the Internet per se, I doubt any computers will be safe ie it is the infrastructure that is being threratened, not the operating system...

i ment i had a MAC because if lil hackers are out tomarrow releasing al kinds of viruses they will most likey target PCs. Im more scared of the lil copycat people who wil cause internet terror and blame it on real terrorist.

That would be interesting if attempted with
software. No possibility of any embedded Trojan
Horse being time activated as anti-virus software
screens the major servers. Perhaps a wide spread
Denial of Service attack? That wouldn't cause
damage, just inconvenience. Now if a telnet fiber
optic main cable was broken, say the one going
through Mojave from the West Coast to the East,
one could cause much inconvenience for many
users, but still the problem could be fixed. A small
explosive charge to do that could be placed in any
of many isolated locations. HomeLand Security
has removed from public access many of the
publications about the physical infrastructure
making possible Internet communications, but the
more intelligent crackers already had the
information in their files about trunk cable
locations, and besides if one has it archived they
could all share it. It would need to be something
new, to be effective. A different approach.

We are sorry for the inconvience, but we are postponing the internet meltdown until a later date. Please stay tuned.

Sorry, lol did anyone really think they would hack the entire internet? I mean I could see maybe a few key sites, but the entire thing? Anyway, Eugene Kaspersky doesn't think they are going to shut down our internet anymore, he thinks maybe just in Israel. Who know's, but I guess we will see.

This, of course comes from the Inquirer so take it with a grain of salt

Wow, I thought it was real for a while, no matter how hard I tried I could not connect to the 'net. Those sneaky russian h4x0rz unplugged my modem in my sleep.

NOT.


IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THE TERRORISTS FAILED.

Together with this one
www.atsnn.com...

the latest lame unuseful news here on ATSNN. Hey, I can understand that some here need this "we are special and cool" feeling and look for news that aren't covered but accept the fact that there is a reason most news aren't covered anywhere else as they are just a hoax.

An "internet meltdown" is pure rubbish for anybody who knows just a little bit about the internet structure.

Too many businesses depend on the internet BIG TIME. As long as rich people want and like something...it'll be there.

[edit on 26-8-2004 by cstyle226]

Internet is running fine for me, no problems of a such. I was always told by College tutor that the internet cannot be "shut down" only slowed down. The only way in his opinion to shut down the internet was via an EMP device that would destory electronical system.

The only way to effectively "kill" the internet as most people know it would be to flood the DNS servers on the backbone in a DDOS attack. How long that could knock it out for I don't know but it's technically possible. Those who know something about "internet structure" might know what I'm talking about.

I can't speak for this news article; but the Terrorism thread one I posted much earlier in the day discussed the fact that while unbelievable, it is possible to wreak havoc on internet communications. The incredulous aspect of the original news article out of Moscow is exactly why I did not post mine as an ATSNN article. I had no way of backing it up.

Perhaps we should have SMEs for ATSNN?

If they took out the dns servers i think people would still be able to surf the net, but.. they would need to know each ip address to what they are trying to find. and i dont think most people know the ip address to ats or google. i sure dont. it would be like the old days of internet(before my time). dns servers make "http://www.abovetopsecret.com" into "http://123.23.234.234" (i jsut made that address up, its probly not even in the correct format).




[edit on 26-8-2004 by tht1prsn]

Taking out the DNS servers isint going to happen. Theres a total of 12 or 13 Root DNS Servers out there, and attacks against them have happened before. To say the least the attacks fizzled and failed. Fact of the matter is you could drop half of the servers and still not do servere damage. Last I discussed this with some IT people I know we came across the factoid that each server keeps a running backup, with up to the date info, and in the event of a failure the site people switch over and keep on going while repairing the other machine.

This can't be that big of a concern, the ThreatCon accoding to Symantec is still a Level 1, which is lowest possible. Sounds like a bunch of BS to me.

From Incidents.Org:

An update about 'The End of Internet' prediction came from VirusList
website.

According the VirusList website, some news agencies misinterpreted
Kaspersky words. "...The story stems from brief comments made yesterday at
a press conference which was dedicated to cybercrime and the problems of
spam.
At this press conference, Kaspersky commented that the possibility of
terrorists using the Internet as a tool to attack certain countries was a
reality. As an example, he cited the fact that a number of Arabic and
Hebrew language websites contained an announcement of an 'electronic jihad'
against Israel, to start on 26th August 2004."

The simple truth is our root DNS servers are always at risk. The only way they would not be at risk is to disconnect them from the internet. Unfortunately, the really smart people haven't found a way to disconnect an important server from the internet to keep it safe since it has to be connected to provide any value.

It did before (obviously not a failure):
news.earthweb.com...
To those who say, "it was only an hour" -- ever hear of a proof of concept?

DNS servers were at risk due to BIND being outdated:
www.isp-planet.com...
How many servers were updated?

Recent hysteria over e-jihad not completely unfounded:
www.eweek.com...59,1639246,00.asp