ABSTRACT
It is Monday morning and you begin your prework ritual by going to the World Wide Web and checking the morning electronic newspapers. In the past you might have read the paper edition of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal; but with free news services and robust search features available on the Internet, you have decided to spare the expense and now the Internet is your primary news source. Your browser automatically opens to the electronic edition of your favorite news site, where you see the latest headline, “Electronic Terrorist Group Responsible for Hundreds of Fatalities.” Now wishing that you had the paper edition, you wonder if this news story is real or simply a teenage hacker’s prank. This would not be the first time that a major news service had its Web site hacked. You read further and the story unfolds. A terrorist group, as promised, has successfully struck out at the United States. This time, the group did not use conventional terrorist weapons such as firearms and explosives, but instead has attacked state infrastructure using computers. Electronically breaking into electric power plants, automated pipelines, and air-traffic-control systems, in one evening they have successfully caused havoc and devastation across the United States, including mid-air collisions over major U.S. city airports. To top it off, the U.S. government is unable to locate the culprits. The only thing that authorities know for sure is that the perpetrators are not physically located in the United States.
