Islamo-cyber-terror hits Defcon level farce

Run for the bus

And still careless talk frequently leads to scandalous reports of foreign intelligence agencies "attacking" computer systems, when they are merely infiltrating them, and even then to an unquantifiable degree. This has led the British government's cyber guardians to speak out against careless talk of attacks.

Chaff

Similarly, it is impossible to say how much cyber espionage is conducted on behalf of blue-chip corporations, and therefore how much the talk of foreign bogeymen misdirects our attention.

It is also worth asking when cyber terrorism is nought but hacktivism. Or when a denial of service attack is merely a retaliation against the organs of colonial propagandists. One man's inspiration is another's propaganda. How much hacktivism is borne of anti-colonial frustration?

And at what point does a threat become a possibility strong enough to justify scaring people out of their beds? Was it strong enough three years ago to justify the warning given by jumpy John Reid, then home secretary and former war minister, that cyber terrorists might disrupt air traffic control systems, some of the most vulnerable and therefore well protected computer systems in a country with among the most well protected computer systems in the world?

Was the threat strong enough five years ago, when computer security was still being brought up to standard across the national infrastructure, and when the cyber threat had us 48-hours from anarchy?

Is it yet strong enough, a year after GCHQ told gullible MPs on the security committee that Islamo-cyber terrorists are still only scary enough to deface your website? But that the threat that they might become more of a threat is still ever-present. At what point did it start sounding absurd?