6/27/2002: Fake cop car

Undertoad · 06-27-2002, 12:33 PM

NYC readers will already have seen this: the NY Post wrote an article yesterday, describing how they were able to rent a Crown Vic and dress it exactly as a cop car for less than $2000.

Not only did they tell us that they did it, but they told us how, with explicit instructions of what was needed and where they got it.

Here's a question, then: is there risk in stories like this? Oddly enough, it's a question that's familiar to anyone involved in the open source movement.

A recent study showed that the open-source Linux operating system is "as secure as" Windows-based server OSes. Anyone at all can get, examine, even modify the Linux system's code, while Windows' code is more-or-less in the hands of Microsoft employees only. Some say this makes the Linux system less secure, because hackers and crackers can find weaknesses and exploit them. Others say that it makes the system much MORE secure, because everyone can find such weaknesses and FIX them.

By broadcasting the detailed instructions for how to copy an official car, for how to build a dirty bomb, for what it would take to break through the wall of a nuclear reactor, which places are being heavily guarded, etc. does the media make the country more secure, or less secure?

06-27-2002, 12:33 PM	#1
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	6/27/2002: Fake cop car NYC readers will already have seen this: the NY Post wrote an article yesterday, describing how they were able to rent a Crown Vic and dress it exactly as a cop car for less than $2000. Not only did they tell us that they did it, but they told us how, with explicit instructions of what was needed and where they got it. Here's a question, then: is there risk in stories like this? Oddly enough, it's a question that's familiar to anyone involved in the open source movement. A recent study showed that the open-source Linux operating system is "as secure as" Windows-based server OSes. Anyone at all can get, examine, even modify the Linux system's code, while Windows' code is more-or-less in the hands of Microsoft employees only. Some say this makes the Linux system less secure, because hackers and crackers can find weaknesses and exploit them. Others say that it makes the system much MORE secure, because everyone can find such weaknesses and FIX them. By broadcasting the detailed instructions for how to copy an official car, for how to build a dirty bomb, for what it would take to break through the wall of a nuclear reactor, which places are being heavily guarded, etc. does the media make the country more secure, or less secure?

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