The Cuckoo's Egg Hatched Again

A while back in the post Ye Olde Drone Hackers Ride Again Dredd Blog pointed out that military and corporate computer systems have been successfully hacked from their beginning.

Dredd Blog provided a link to the free book The Cuckoo's Egg, a story about how a young hippie was given a national medal of honor for proving that many military and defense contractor sites were actively being compromised at that time.

A new era in hacking is emerging as hackers become even more sophisticated, to the point of being able to bring down nuclear and other power plants:

Cyber security experts say they have identified the world's first known cyber super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world target – a factory, a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.

The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical world – to destroy something.

(Christian Science Monitor). The media and government generally disregard the threat this has posed for decades to U.S. elections.

Dredd Blog pointed out the reality of this threat in the post "Election Conspiracy Theory Confirmed?".

With all the wackos winning elections these days, perhaps it is time to revisit this subject with a sober analysis instead of the tired old "it can't happen here" naive bias.

The next post in this series is here.