Home > Work > CyberStorm (Cyberstorm, #1)
21 " didn’t take the bait. “Have you been introduced to the Borodins?” I motioned toward the elderly Russian couple at the table beside them. Aleksandr, the husband, was already asleep in a lounger, snoring quietly away beside his wife, Irena, who was busy knitting. The Borodins "
― Matthew Mather , CyberStorm (Cyberstorm, #1)
22 " You can’t protect freedom by giving it away. "
23 " She made amazing borscht, "
24 " Meatspace?” “The Internet is in cyberspace, but we”—he paused for effect—“are in meatspace, get it? "
25 " matthew.mather@phuturenews.com "
26 " No risk,” said Chuck, wagging one finger in the air, “equals no freedom. "
27 " I’m addicted to food. The "
28 " Makes me nervous someone is planning something in meatspace.” “Meatspace?” “The Internet is in cyberspace, but we”—he paused for effect—“are in meatspace, get it? "
29 " We’re maturing. "
30 " What I mean by graceful degradation,” continued Chuck as Sarah filled his plate, “is that there’s no longer a way to revert to previous technology if something fails.” “Example?” “Like this logistics thing that screwed up shipping. Everything is ‘just in time,’ with a handful of central warehouses located in the middle of nowhere that stock almost nothing.” “So no local stock if the supply chain gets disrupted?” “Exactly. The complex systems supporting cities are balanced on a knife’s edge. Knock out one supporting leg—logistics, for instance—and poof,” said Chuck, blowing on his hand, “the whole thing goes down. Supply chain attack is the big weakness.” “So "
31 " That is such a load of left-wing horseshit. You want somebody to blame?” Chuck pointed at the "
32 " This is it!” I yelled to Damon. “Any last words?” “Give me a second.” “Those are your last words? "
33 " With a typical Fortune 500 company using thousands of individual software programs, the list of vulnerabilities could hover in the tens of thousands at any given moment. It was an impossible game of catch-up against an adversary that only needed one hole to remain open among literally millions that an organization had to continually fix. "
34 " China had more than 160 cities with populations over a million, where the United States had exactly nine. I "
35 " I thought about it, and you’re right. Fear isn’t the answer. If we’re afraid of everything, then we’re afraid to do anything, and that means we’re giving up our freedom. You were right!” Over "
36 " You know what freedom really is?” demanded Rory. “Freedom is civil liberty, and the foundation of civil liberty is privacy. No privacy means no civil liberty means no freedom. "
37 " Stuxnet, the virus believed to have taken down Iranian nuclear processing plants in 2010, had used about ten zero-days to get inside the systems it attacked. It was one of the first of a new breed of sophisticated cyberweapons. They cost a lot of time and money to build, so someone wouldn’t be unleashing these ones without some purpose in mind. “What "
38 " pulled the catfish out of the water, and it dangled in front of us, trapped by something it didn’t understand. "
39 " looked into its eyes, and then grabbed it by the tail and smashed its head against a rock. "
40 " cigar. Do you know the average age of the mission controller during the Apollo program?” Now we all shrugged, but he wasn’t really asking. “Twenty-seven!” “Your point?” “My point is that these days people barely trust a twenty-seven-year-old to cook their burger, never mind land on the moon. Everything needs to be vetted by a million committees, and we’re afraid of practically everything. We’re just not willing to accept risk anymore, and it’s killing this country. "