Lately, there has been a lot of scare on the doctors from India being involved in various bomb plots. The attacks seemed to be put together by people harnessing the power of the internet. Yet, it all culminated in the physical execution of the plans. As the world grows more and more interconnected with almost all systems being online, is such a physical action necessary?
The movie Die Hard 4.0, loosely based on an article in Wired Magazine (1) explores this question. Consider this: The world is depending on the power of internet for everything. Be it controlling the railway networks, the communication, financial markets, national power grids and so. What if someone who wanted to control the world mounted a concerted attacks on this national lifeline? What if someone took over the internet and in effect took over the control? There is no physical force being used. Yet, the devastation caused could be chilling.
Consider the scenario played out in the article, the movie and another plot by Tom Clancy in his book Debt of Honour. In each of the place, there is a running plot like where a group with malicious intent takes control of the financial markets. What if the companies which are involved in trading of volumes unimaginable by mere mortals loose control of the gate-keepers of their treasure – the software programs that take the “buy-sell” decisions? What if these software wreak havoc when they fail to understand the markets since it goes against their pre-programmed business rules?
Or consider another scenario: What if the entire nation's traffic network is brought to a stand still? What happens when the metros, tubes, traffic signals – all of which are centralized suddenly have new masters, a group of nerds who have some ulterior motive rather than smooth running of the economy?
Or, what if the utility grids – the power and water supply networks are brought to grinding halt? What happens to life-support systems in hospitals? What happens when the entire country suddenly grows dark? (Although in a country like India, it is not a big worry right now, since this happens often enough!) Yet, in countries where there are sky scrapers, literally mini-cities in a building, such a power outage would mean no clean air, water and transportation. It is a scenario for nightmare.
These are some really worrying questions to answer and looks like not really many people even know where to begin. For a country like India it essentially means that since it is not so well connected, when it is going to start building such systems into place, it should ensure has systems in place to tackle such hindrances. Or else, India will be as vulnerable to these attacks as any other country in the world.
Wired Magazine article - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.05/netizen.html
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Die Hard 4.0 - Don't waste £ 7.6
Yesterday, I watched the movie Die Hard 4.0. It is supposedly based on an info war on the US of A and how our incorrigible action-addicted hero John Wayne comes to the rescue and single handedly rescues the world, the complete financial networks, the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, NYPD and his daughter. Sounds far-fetched? You ain't heard anything yet!
Supposedly, the movie is based on an article in the Wired magazine (I'll write an article on this later..). The article was written by the editor of the magazine with a view on how the growing dependence on technology could in itself be a honey-pot for the growing band of “bad guys”. The scenario is real and scary (I'll explain that later) but the movie sucks!
The most irritating part about the movie is where our hero does unnecessary herogiri when none is called for. For example, to kill the villain's girl friend, he gets into an SUV, drives through a building, ends up getting stuck in a lift shaft, gets himself almost killed and burns down half the building. It's almost like a competition where you are supposed to do the simplest thing in the most complicated manner.
Anyway, for the gist of the story (WARNING: Plot exposed!), it is about how a mercenary hacker turns against the system. A person who helped design the various fail back system for the biggest financial networks and defence networks decides that he now wants some money and the safest way to do it is by crippling America, triggering a backup process that copies over the entire financial records to one single database – then to copy this data, modify it so that he can scoop up a lot of $$. Nifty. Isn't it? But, he hadn't thought of one thing – our gun-toting, car-stealing, helicopter hunting hero – Detective John Wayne.
John who is dispatched to fetch a hacker for questioning gets embroiled in this technology-crap and ends up shooting a lot of people, destroying many buildings and killing an F-35 stealth bomber by jumping on, destroys a helicopter by crashing a car into it and various other stunts which our Rajni sir would have been proud of.
As if this was not enough, there is a sub-plot where the villain kidnaps John's daughter and intends to keep her hostage. John gets enraged and goes to get him - despite the fact that the traffic system is down due to the hacking unleashed by the bad guys. Strange though coz all others are shown stuck in traffic jams while our hero gets to drive in various cars, trailers, helicopters and F-35s – no jams, whatsoever. Wonder who managed the traffic for him.
Anyway, defying all logic and rationality, John, the angered father gets to the bad guy, kills him, gets the data back and saves the US of A and all ends well.
So, my suggestion is – if you have absolutely nothing else to do and want to burn up some $s, £s, Rs or whatever the currencty that you earn, please refrain from watching this horrible piece of movie. It is just not worth it.
References
Read all about the amazing figher plane in the movie at - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35_Lightning_II
For a more detailed movie details check out the Wiki site - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hard_4.0
Supposedly, the movie is based on an article in the Wired magazine (I'll write an article on this later..). The article was written by the editor of the magazine with a view on how the growing dependence on technology could in itself be a honey-pot for the growing band of “bad guys”. The scenario is real and scary (I'll explain that later) but the movie sucks!
The most irritating part about the movie is where our hero does unnecessary herogiri when none is called for. For example, to kill the villain's girl friend, he gets into an SUV, drives through a building, ends up getting stuck in a lift shaft, gets himself almost killed and burns down half the building. It's almost like a competition where you are supposed to do the simplest thing in the most complicated manner.
Anyway, for the gist of the story (WARNING: Plot exposed!), it is about how a mercenary hacker turns against the system. A person who helped design the various fail back system for the biggest financial networks and defence networks decides that he now wants some money and the safest way to do it is by crippling America, triggering a backup process that copies over the entire financial records to one single database – then to copy this data, modify it so that he can scoop up a lot of $$. Nifty. Isn't it? But, he hadn't thought of one thing – our gun-toting, car-stealing, helicopter hunting hero – Detective John Wayne.
John who is dispatched to fetch a hacker for questioning gets embroiled in this technology-crap and ends up shooting a lot of people, destroying many buildings and killing an F-35 stealth bomber by jumping on, destroys a helicopter by crashing a car into it and various other stunts which our Rajni sir would have been proud of.
As if this was not enough, there is a sub-plot where the villain kidnaps John's daughter and intends to keep her hostage. John gets enraged and goes to get him - despite the fact that the traffic system is down due to the hacking unleashed by the bad guys. Strange though coz all others are shown stuck in traffic jams while our hero gets to drive in various cars, trailers, helicopters and F-35s – no jams, whatsoever. Wonder who managed the traffic for him.
Anyway, defying all logic and rationality, John, the angered father gets to the bad guy, kills him, gets the data back and saves the US of A and all ends well.
So, my suggestion is – if you have absolutely nothing else to do and want to burn up some $s, £s, Rs or whatever the currencty that you earn, please refrain from watching this horrible piece of movie. It is just not worth it.
References
Read all about the amazing figher plane in the movie at - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35_Lightning_II
For a more detailed movie details check out the Wiki site - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hard_4.0
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