Stardate 20020627.1328

(Captain's log): I do appreciate all the mail I get, although sometimes the sheer quantity of it can get intimidating. I try to answer as much of it as I can, but it just isn't really possible.

A lot of people write to me with pointers to stories they think I might like to write about. I do, too, and you'll see them given credit here when I do. But sometimes there's a breaking story that a lot of people will point to and wonder why I haven't written about it. Usually it's because I don't have anything to say about it.

I haven't commented on the 9th Circuit Court's decision on the Pledge of Allegiance because I think it's a tempest in a teapot. Someone's got too much spare time on his hands.

I guess I should probably comment on the WaPo article about how al Qaeda is going to use a laptop and an internet connection in Central Asia somewhere to destroy the US. Folks, what you're seeing is a reporter who has been working too hard.

This doesn't mean the end of high-tech Western civilization. Forget about "direct instrument of bloodshed", except in a minimalistic way. For instance, it's entirely possible that the spillgates on a dam could be operated by inimical remote control, but that doesn't mean that someone in a safe house in Peshawar hits "Enter" and all the water from behind the dam is instantly released as if the dam had broken. Spillgates don't work that way. What would happen is that water would begin to pour over the top of the dam, local workers would wonder why (it's very rare) and get on the phone, and when they discovered that it was a mistake, someone would go use a manual control to override and turn them back off again.

I have no doubt that major phone systems could be brought down, but we've had failures of the phone systems before. It may be possible to do awful things to the power grid, but we've survived power failures.

Yes, during those kinds of intervals it's possible that people can die. Someone needs an ambulance and can't call for one, etc. But this kind of threat is a far cry from nuking a city. This isn't a destructive attack; it's more like high-tech vandalism; a bit of a hassle, but not a knock-out blow.

If you forget about the explicit subject matter, which seems oh-so-cool because it's the "internet", and consider the breathless reporting style, this is no different than the reporter-takedowns you've read a thousand times before about the new massive threat (e.g. acrylamide in french fries causing cancer) that somehow never seems to actually be all that serious when you look at it in the bright light of the day.