RE: Digital Destruction Was Worst Imaginable

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Dan Verton <Dan_Verton () computerworld com>

Let me set the record straight for the naysayers. As a former
intelligence officer, I am certainly not one to overstate cyber
events. However, here are the facts, a few of which I have agreed not
to disclose publicly (so I'll have to walk around them).

First of all, the "deaf, dumb and blind" analogy is no overstatement.
This is from an interview with a senior official who was with the
president at the time of the attacks. I have agreed not to disclose
the details for national security reasons.

The implications of the damage at the WTC are in no way overstated.
All infrastructure is regional. And the main switching station in NYC
was a key facility, the loss of which the US national security
community has never before had to deal with -- this comes directly
from the director of the National Communications System.

If you know anything about national security, you would know the
importance of keeping the financial markets online. Each day they
remained down (with the notable exception of NASDAQ), was one day
closer to reaching a much worse disaster for the country. The
president himself called the director of the NCS and ordered that Wall
Street be placed as the next priority behind search and rescue.

While it is true that other parts of the country were relatively
unaffected, that in now way diminishes the threat that faced the
nation due to the comms destruction at the WTC sight, nor does it
account for the mass confusion and blindness [my words, based on
confidential interviews] that the national command authority was
dealing with on that day.

Dan Verton



InfoSec News <isn () c4i org> on 03/09/2002 04:49:00 AM

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Subject:  RE: [ISN] Digital Destruction Was Worst Imaginable


Forwarded from: covert_one <covert_one () ziplip com>

I wholly disagree with Rob's comments, or at least his cut and paste
of some sentator's comment. (we call this FUD, fear, uncertainy, and
dispair, I sometimes call it Fu-ked Up Data) The problems of cellular
communications during the WTC event was due to a massive amount of
traffic, the problems of being unable to reach officers in the tower
was due to field radio ranges, inside a building and 80 stories up.
But to claim that the entire US was blind, deaf during the event is a
massive overstatement. How did I get to watch the second airplane hit
the second tower live?  Television. Did I have any problems using my
cellphone, a landline, or using a radio or television in Michigan at
9:10am on 9/11? Nope. I know of employees that managed to call loved
ones in NYC, and even a person five miles from the penatgon with no
problems on the landlines and cellular. More people hit the internet
during this time for news reports as this event unfolded.

[...]



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