[From today's Globe and Mail]
A computer hacker who allowed himself to be publicly identified only as “Mudhen” once boasted at a Las Vegas conference that he could disable a Chinese satellite with nothing but his laptop computer and a cellphone.
The others took him at his word, because Mudhen worked at the Puzzle Palace — the nickname of the U.S. National Security Agency facility at Fort Meade, Md., which houses the world's most powerful and sophisticated electronic eavesdropping and anti-terrorism systems.
It was these systems, plus an army of cryptographers, chaos theorists, mathematicians and computer scientists, that may have pulled in the first piece of evidence that led Canadian authorities to arrest an Ottawa man on terrorism charges last week . . . . [Read the full story as it appeared in the paper]
I just read your article. The last four paragraphs are so technically inaccurate and confusing I have to wonder if you consulted anyone on this piece. IP doesn't work quite like this. The conjecture how about NSA staff may configure their systems is also just silly in its simplicity, given their capabilities. Unimpressive.
I was just pointed out your article by a friend of mine.. I think if you took the first sentence from the 4th-last paragraph, and ended the piece there, you'd have been better off. Instead, your last 4 paragraphs show you have little understanding of what you write about, and more or less invalidate the rest of your article, except the part where you state somebody was arrested. At least that part is right.
I'm also curious if the statemet near the beginning which included chaos theorists is actually documented, or something you just made up.
If you're going to continue to claim to be a technology writer, you could at least be better educated on the subject. Ill-informed articles and writers like yourself are part of the reason we have to deal with ridiculous applications of laws, where people who deface webpages are charged with “terrorism”.
Sadly, you could have looked like you knew what you were talking about if you'd done even an hour of research beforehand.
A computer writer who allowed himself to be publicly identified only as “David Akin” once boasted in a
Canadian national newspaper
that he could describe how the Internet works with nothing but his laptop computer and a cellphone.
The readers took him at his word, because David Aiken worked at the Puzzled Palace — the nickname of
Canada's National Newspaper
facility in Toronto, On., which houses the nation's most powerful and sophisticated electronic disinformation and anti-terrorism systems.
It was these systems, plus an army of lexographers, coffee-break theorists, webmonkeys, and not one writer who properly understands computer technology, that may have mangled the first piece of wire service copy that led many
Canadian
newspapers to reprint yet another clueless article on the Internet and terrorism today. . . .
[Read the full story as it … oh, why bother?]
Now that last one was clever . . .