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B Zerbits El Nino -> (12/7/2001 3:41:00 AM)
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I read about some software and (circuit boards to be run by the software) sold by a firm in the USA to a civil authority in, IIRC, Poland. It was electronics to keep stoplights in intersections working nicely.
There was code in there designed specifically, not by accident, and PUT there by the manufacturer, which would serverely **** up the traffic control of any city in Poland using said electronics.
Which, I guess, is fine if Poland declares war on the USA or it's allies, I guess that is why the code was injected. However, there was some risk a malicious person would stumble onto the code and activate it for fun.
I read too, since the cold war has "ended" much of this stuff has been repaired, which is okay. I wonder how much hasn't been repaired for various, some legitimate, reasons?
I wonder if I have a "kill his HDD, feed nulls into his BIOS and make his oil furnace unworkable" code somewhere in this box, one written on the orders of (name a government security agency with a mandate to do this sort of thing, right or wrong).
I suppose it is possible to bust a machine after even being the PERFECT admin.....
It's enough to make a guy switch over to a slide rule, paper, pens, pencils, stamps and library books. My mom still won't have a computer in her house and the more I hear, the less I discount her raving.
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Opening questionable mails attachments is plain stupid.
[ December 06, 2001: Message edited by: GI Seve ]
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