December 16, 2003
Ever Heard of Cyber Civics?... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes."
Who can forget being in school and taking Civics? We learned how the government worked and what it meant to be a good citizen. Of course, we had no idea what life would be like today.
For every 100 Americans, there are now 62 personal computers, and more adult Americans have accounts on the Internet than don't. PC's and Internet connectivity have become the norm: So how might that affect our civic duty?
Let's start with computer viruses. We usually discuss them in terms of how to protect our own computers, but there might be more to it than that.
One technologist I know proposes that anti-virus software should also be used for the protection of others. He believes that one reason you want to stop receiving computer viruses is so you won't inadvertently pass them on to somebody else.
He calls it being a good cyber-citizen ... and I think, he just might be right.
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The worst virus I ever got was from the trustee of a major university who had no idea a virus had infected her system. Every time she sent an email, her computer would quickly send a follow-on email containing the virus. It looked to me like she'd just had an added thought, and of course, I trusted her. Ultimately, it mangled 6 weeks of my data.
But let's get something straight: I wasn't simply an innocent bystander here. Our of shear impatience, I had turned off my virus checker. As a result, my computer didn't recognize the incoming virus, and it was only technical happenstance I didn't pass it along to somebody else. Needless to say, I could hardly point any fingers.
So now, let's ratchet it up a notch.
Several years back, CNN, Yahoo, eBay and E*Trade all found their websites jammed up at various hours of the day and night, and no one could gain access. At the same time, no one seemed to be on their websites, so what could be happening?
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A teenager - with a simple set of tools he had downloaded from the Internet - took advantage of a vulnerability which worked something like this: When you type a website into your computer, it and all the software in between contacts the website's server, which sends a message back to you along the lines of "Okay, I hear you. Now, let's sync up." And that was the opening: if your computer never came back with: "Cool. Let's do it!" the website would just sit there and wait forever.
Let's say a group of computers starts peppering a website with these half-baked requests for service. Eventually all the possible incoming slots - even for a huge website - would get filled up and no one could get in. So, the trickster dredged the Internet for computers onto which he could load his mischievous software, and at his command, they all started lambasting various websites with bogus requests.
Which brings us to the civics lesson ... while he was eventually caught and the websites fixed, nothing happened to the people whose computers were used in the attack. The question is: Why not? Couldn't it be argued that the owners of these computers had a social responsibility to be sure they weren't being used by people unknown for purposes unknown?
If you ask me, the course description for Cyber-Civics 101 is just beginning to take shape.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
