Note the attribution to Weekly World News. I believe you'll find it at the
supermarket checkout counter, normally with a cover picture of a lady giving
birth to an alien, in black and white. It's total cow manure. (But fun to
read sometimes from a purely amusement value point of view.)
The Sharp computer smoking because you messed with the cassette relay is
almost believable, given the fact that some cassette recorders release a bit
of blue smoke without being abused (and promptly quit working, needing a new
infusion of factory blue smoke.)
Besides, given the state of litigation in this country, don't you think you
would have heard about the product liability lawsuit already?
-----Original Message-----
From: sihaya [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2000 11:43 PM
Subject: Would someone care to comment on this?
Hi all!
I realize this is way off topic but I didn't know where else to ask for
an opinion.
I was sent this URL and article (below) as part of a security
newsletter and it seems a bit farfetched to say the least. Please
forgive me if this seems like a 'weeny'-type question: Is this article
supposed to be for real?
Thanks in advance!
-----------------------------
Posted 05/04/2000 1:45am by Thomas C. Greene in Washington
Hackers can make your PC explode
Hackers can now turn your home computer into a bomb and blow your
family to
smithereens, and do so remotely from thousands of miles away, the
Weekly World
News reports.
The recent DDoS attacks which paralysed the Amazon, Buy.com and eBAY
Web
sites are tame compared to what will happen in the near future, the
paper warns.
Computer expert Arnold Yabenson, president of the Washington-based
consumer
group National CyberCrime Prevention Foundation (NCPF), says that
we've only seen
the tip of the iceberg.
"It is already possible for an assassin to send someone an e-mail with
an
innocent-looking attachment. When the receiver downloads the
attachment, the
electrical current and molecular structure of the central processing
unit is altered,
causing it to blast apart like a large hand grenade," the paper quotes
Yabenson as
saying.
"The criminals who knocked out those on-line businesses are the least
of our worries,"
Yabenson said.
"There are brilliant but unscrupulous hackers out there who have
developed
technologies that the average person can't even dream of. Even people
who are
familiar with how computers work have trouble getting their minds
around the terrible
things that can be done."
"As shocking as this is, it shouldn't surprise anyone. It's just the
next step in an
ever-escalating progression of horrors conceived and instituted by
hackers," he
warned.
Yabenson points out that these "dangerous sociopaths" have already
vandalised FBI
and US Army Web sites, and have come within two digits of cracking an
87-digit
Russian security code that would have sent deadly missiles hurtling
toward five of
America's major cities, the paper notes.
"As dangerous as this technology is right now, it's going to get much
scarier,"
Yabenson said. "Soon it will be sold to terrorists cults and fanatical
religious-fringe
groups. Instead of blowing up a single plane, these groups will be
able to patch into
the central computer of a large airline and blow up hundreds of planes
at once."
The Register had hoped to interview Yabenson for clarification of just
how the planes
would be made to explode. Perhaps via embedded microprocessors whose
molecular structure could be altered remotely, as with the previously
described e-mail
attachment, we were thinking.
But alas, a Web search for the NCPF yielded only the North Carolina
Psychological
Foundation, which, as we consider it, might have a few valuable
insights into this story
after all... �
Register historic factoid: Reader Dale Hubbard claims that back in
1980 you could
make a Sharp MZ80K smoke, "and sometimes even flame. This was
accomplished
by writing a program in assembler that would activate/deactivate the
cassette relay
switch in a very swift toggle motion. The resultant friction could
certainly warm up the
relay." Thank you, Dale. A well mispent youth.
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