Randolph Updated 2018/10/10: In the fourteen years since this post appeared, I’ve become even more cynical. Looking back at Melamed’s profile over the years, he was an early adopter of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) as a mode to acquire customers. Melamed and consultants like him are an annoyance in the IT industry because they add nothing of value but always appear to be in the news selling fear. It’s ironic that the original URL no longer works, but I found plenty more examples of his FUD strategy elsewhere.
This is the gift that keeps on giving. Ian Melamed, who at the time of the original article (dead link) was a consultant with Shaya Technologies, labelled the World Community Grid project a potential “powerful cyber-terror weapon”. He said that if “hackers manage to penetrate the super-network”, it could be used for “sinister purposes”.
Do you know what else is a potential “powerful cyber-terror weapon”? The rest of the Internet.
Melamed had clearly never heard of similar grid systems like SETI@home, BOINC or Google Compute.
Give me a break. If you want to add anything useful, try recommending that people install the latest firewall and anti-malware software on their computers instead of wasting my time.
I’m nominating Ian Melamed from Shaya Technologies as my obliviot of the month.
Update (2006/03/30 09:30): No cyber-terror weapon this side of the timeline.
Update (2006/04/26 13:28): Still no cyber-terror weapon this side of the timeline.
Update (2007/03/24 22:57): Still no cyber-terror weapon.
Update (2008/12/30 23:43): Still no cyber-terror weapon, although in fairness, it’s only been four years since it was suggested.
Update (2009/05/01 14:50): Still no cyber-terror weapon.
Update (2011/06/01 19:25): Still no cyber-terror weapon. And even the PlayStation Network hack was done from Amazon EC2 through a proxy, but not the World Community Grid!
Update (2011/12/20 22:09): Still no cyber-terror weapon.
Update (2012/08/25 21:08): Still no cyber-terror weapon.
Update (2018/10/10 12:06): Still no cyber-terror weapon.