Tie Word Terror

Tie Any Word To Terror

By Roy D. Follendore III

July 24, 2002

I just read the introduction to an article on "CyberTerrorism." It started out saying "Although there are no actual cases of CyberTerrorism on record..." I just love to read these kinds of statements because it sets up the fact that the rest of the article is fiction.

Consider: Although there are no actual cases of children under the age of six stealing plutonium to make an atomic bomb, we think that they are a threat. How about, although there are no actual cases of spontaneous antigravity occurring, we think that it is a threat.

It isn't that I don't believe in the concept of "CyberTerrorism." Come to think of it, I am not actually sure what exactly a "Cyber" is. Is a Cyber one or many? If two Cybers are used to commit terror, would that mean that there would be a CybersTerror event taking place?

Assuming that Cyber means "related to a computer," I suppose CyberTerror exists. I know it exists every time I see a blue screen of death and have to reboot. We even know exactly who the cyberterrorist organizations are. They are Intel and Microsoft because without these two companies, there could be no cyberterror. But the real truth is more that the term was invented by computer security scoundrels who are out to build and industry and make a buck. (SecurityScoundrelTerrorism?)

I am not saying that one cannot do something dangerous with a computer. Computers are used in all kinds of things that are dangerous. I have never actually thought about it but it would probably be stupid not to put a computer in a thermonuclear bomb. Computers are used in all kinds of weapons systems that can be used to cause terror. I am not sure that modern weapons systems would work or work right these days otherwise. I am sure that computers run power generator plants, life support systems at hospitals, communications satellites that help us communicate in emergencies. Certainly we might expect that these things could be used against us in ways that might be somehow construed to be terrorism. But the problem with the term "CyberTerrorism" is that computers don't just jump up and commit terror. Computers are not intelligent. In fact they are pretty stupid. They are essentially just complex switches. It takes an awful lot of work to keep them looking intelligent. That is probably why they may be so dangerous. But they do not plot to overthrow the Government. They do not deliberately hurt people. They don't deliberately do anything. Assignment of an independent deliberate act of terror to a computer is not only a crazy concept, it is inappropriate and a fabrication. I know you have heard this argument before but it is true. People cause terror. Computers do not.

The simple fact of the matter is that there are terrorist and there is the concept of terror. There are terrorists that use explosives and there are terrorist that use aircraft. Terror can be used with anything. Dripping water was once used as a threat to terrorize prisoners so I suppose we might construct the term "DrippingwaterTerrorism." My point is that the act of defining a terrorist by the tools that are used is ludicrous. Some people are terrified by heights, while others are terrified by rats. Terror is what it is, not what caused it. I suppose that there are people who are truly terrified by computers but I don't know anyone like that. CyberTerror is a misnomer because it fails the basic premise of terror.

I have no problems with the idea that computers might be used to indirectly induce terror, just they are just not directly related to terror. They are not "a form of terror" because they are not the final product that is the terror. Things are always what they are until they are used as something else. Human beings have always made new tools by using them for different purposes.

For instance, a box cutter is what it is, a tool to open cardboard boxes, until it is used to threaten someone. I don't think it is fair to continue to call it a box cutter after that. It became a knife used by a person inducing terror. The user can transform that tool, any tool into something else. In defining a box cutter as a weapon of terror, we have forgotten it's original productive use in favor of labeling the definition according to a particular moment. Of course a box cutter is a knife. It always was. But it was not always a weapon system until it is used as such and that is the point.

Once we start calling things that are indirectly associated with terror "Blank-Terrorism," we might as well define everything in that way. How about "TennisShoeTerrorism," because there was an attempt to use a bomb in a pair of tennis shoes, or "FingernailclipperTerrorism" because some idiots actually think that they are preventing terrorism by barring fingernail clippers from aircraft. On an international flight a group of people innocently caused passengers to be terrorized because they were passing around notes in a foreign language. Would this mean that there is a form of "Unknown-Note-Passing-Terrorism?"

For me the notion of redefining everything in the Universe in terms of terror is pretty terrifying in and of itself.

Now what word could we tie to terror for that.

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