OPINION
Monday, February 28. 2000 • THE BATTALION Page 9
Crash and burn
in ad). This rate applies
u get an additional 5
duled to end to qualify to
Lax Internet security to blame for computer crime,
hacker incidents blown out of proportion
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ver 100 years ago,
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also known as the
Ipanish-American War,
wan because of the me-
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-AugusM6th. Enjoy a greatsurrm, . . . .
j be unforgettable Man-Ken* In recent days and weeks, once again, the
om (Boys): i-soo-rss-gits Daw | e dj a begun pushing the United States into
ttar,and this time it is a war that cannot he won.
The media latched onto the recent spate of
ittacks by hackers as evidence of a growing
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forwar. However, society is beginning to and
Kill adapt to its cyber-fallacies before any
War against cyber-criminals” is necessary.
The problem here is the media, not the
lackers. Most citizens of this country are
Koefully uninformed about how the Internet
norks, Internet security and hacking. The me-
ys on this ignorance. Media exploita-
lion of ignorance was also a major theme of,
i guessed it, the Spanish-American War.
However, Internet securitv has become a
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service” attacks knocked sites such as
CNN.com and eBay offline for hours or days
mdcost those companies millions. Hackers
Iroke into government Websites and left vul-
tarmessages as calling cards. 1 iighly-publi-
fized(by the media) cyber-crimes hit the
news every few weeks. These attacks show
sites on the Internet just are not safe.
The sites are not safe because the owners
lave not made them safe. Most sites are wide-
open and hackers do not even need to break
through security. Christopher Paterno, the
prankster who impersonated President Clin
ton during a recent CNN.com online chat, is a
perfect example. Due to a hardware glitch, all
the participants in the forum were kicked off.
JEFF SMITH/The Battalion
including the president (actually, his typist.).
Paterno logged back on, this time as “Presi-
dent_Clinton,” without any system attempts
to stop him. He made a few inappropriate
comments before being kicked off and
banned from the forum. Paterno did what he
did, not because he was some malicious tech
no-sociopath, but because there was a gaping
hole in the system’s security that allowed
anyone to logon and pretend to be someone
else.
There are gaping holes in much of the In
ternet’s security. These holes are the fault of
the site owners, not just the hackers who
take advantage of them. It may seem silly at
first, but an example clarifies the situation.
Assume a bank leaves all the doors open,
leaves the lights on and leaves the vault un
locked one night. Would anyone be surprised
if the money in the vault were gone the next
morning? Of course not. This would not be
surprising because the security was so bad.
Only the unscrupulous or greedy would take
the money, but they would not have the
chance without the laxity of the hypothetical
bank’s security. Most banks are more security
conscious than this and so cannot be success
fully robbed except by a few skilled criminals.
Similarly, many companies, if they took
security seriously, would be impregnable to
all but the most skilled hackers. However,
companies do not take security seriously
and try to blame the hackers who took ad
vantage of the companies’ mistakes.
The job of a security system is not to
keep all interlopers out; that is missing the
point. Security systems are designed to
make it so difficult for unauthorized people
to get past the system that it is not worth
the trouble. Current Internet security not
only makes it easy for the unauthorized to get
in, it commonly refuses to fix existing holes.
These existing, proven holes are what
hackers commonly use in attacks. If the
hackers can consistently break a security
system, and the company in charge refuses
to fix the problem, it is not the hackers’
fault. It is the fault of the company who
leaves the doors open and the vault unlocked.
Another factor, one that is rapidly dimin
ishing, is that the cyber-community depends
on proactive attacks to prove that security is
worthwhile. The online community, that part
that is most involved in security, by and large
will not trust a system that has not been sub
ject to attack. A system that has not been at
tacked may be good, or it may be a cakewalk.
The recent spate of attacks is, from the
point of view of the hackers, just a security
test. It does not make it right, but it does make
it predictable.
The current wave of cyber-attacks will only
last so long as companies do not take Internet se
curity seriously. Once that happens, the attacks
will mostly stop because it will no longer be fun
or interesting enough for most hackers. And, as"
the culture online changes, the attacks will fade
away. Until then, America should place the
blame where it is due, on the hackers, yes, but
also on the companies who have not pulled their
heads out of the sand.
Chris Huffines is a senior speech
communication major.
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I
Yakama Nation
has right to tax
fthe tribal
council of the
Yakama Na
tion has its way,
it will become
pry costly to gel
drunk - or to en
able someone
else to get drunk
on the Yakama
Reservation in Washington. The
council has decided to levy a steep
taxon alcoholic beverages sold with
in the borders of the reservation.
Proceeds from the tax are to be
used to fund alcohol-treatment pro
grams. Many non-Native Americans
who live on the reservation are un
happy about the plan. The reserva
tion is going dry as businessmen and
women haggle with the council, and
distributors refuse to deliver beer,
wine and spirits to the reservation in
protest.
The tribal elders see a
need for alcohol
treatment within
their jurisdiction and
have instituted a
program to finance it.
suncliase.coc 5
>0-SUNCHASE
ment within
their juris
diction and
have insti
tuted a pro
gram to fi
nance it. The
immediate
reaction from the non-Native Ameri
can community was, “Taxation with
out representation!” Is it so? Not re
ally. Is it unfair? Most definitely not.
Should the tax be allowed to contin-
#e? Sure.
First, it is important to note that
Ihe Yakama are a sovereign nation.
What they choose to do within their
torders is their own business. This
sovereignty was the concession of
le U.S. government when it packed
their ancestors off into the least-de
sirable land available. Their autono-
Jiyhas been whittled away bit by bit
over the years. The trend seems to be
trying to absorb them into the Ameri
can culture. What seems to have
keen forgotten is that they are the
American culture.
The protesters of the tax, almost
II of whom are Anglo-Americans,
derive their income largely from
•he sale of alcohol on the reserva-
•ion. Their problem with the tax is
that it hurts their business.
An identical strategy, with identi
cal reasoning, lies behind another ex
orbitant tax, the one imposed on to
bacco products. Like the Yakama,
the U.S. government decided that
since smokers were a drain on the
public coffers in later life when
smoking’s consequences begin to
appear, they could pay for the privi
lege of destroying their lungs by
paying a tax. The production cost of
a pack of cigarettes is less than a dol
lar. The rest of the two-dollars-and-
something price is tax. Americans
approve of this tax and this method
ology. So now when a group makes
an analogous tax on a substance that
causes quite as much harm in its
community, it puts objectors in an
unflattering light.
Granted, the non-Native Ameri
can population on the reservation
who use al
cohol will be
taxed with
out their
consent, but
so is every
resident
alien in this
country who
earns in
come. They
are equally
unrepresent
ed. They are foreigners living in this
country, earning money, and the gov
ernment is entitled to their cut. The
situation on the Yakama reservation
is identical.
If a resident alien protested pay
ing income taxes, they would likely
be told that there were two choices:
pay the legally imposed tax, or leave
the country. Remembering that the
Yakama are sovereign on their reser
vation, the unhappy Anglos have the
same two choices.
Ironically, Americans, the cham
pions of democratic self-government
in the world, oppose the notion with
in their own borders, if it is bad for
business.
I f the case should end up in the
Supreme Court (and it may), there is
lots of support for the Yakama to
come out the winners.
Ann Hart is a senior
English major.
College of Liberal Arts career fair neglected
T exas A&M University is
a school that has a highly
developed reputation for
its science and technological
colleges. Yet, there is one col
lege at A&M that lacks the at
tention it merits. The College
of Liberal Arts has close to
5,000 undergraduate students
and about 1,000 graduate stu
dents. The College of Engineering has about 7,000
undergraduates. The two colleges have roughly the
same number of students which would lead one to
believe that both would be well known. Yet despite
its a large population, when one thinks about liberal
arts education, most immediately think of that “oth
er” Texas school.
A&M has on its staff a Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist in the liberal arts college. Is this fact a
shock to many? It should not be. To have such a
prestigious prize recipient working for the Universi
ty and to have few people knowing this fact is unset
tling. Many would believe that fact would be well-
publicized since it is such an honor. Yet, the little
that has been said about this highlights two prob
lems that hinder the progress for the liberal arts col
lege: lack of public recognition of the college and
the old stereotype of A&M as only a science school.
Take, for instance, the recent career fair held by
the College of Liberal Arts. While missing the Lib
eral Arts career fair may seem to be a non-issue for
non-liberal arts students, they missed out on a great
opportunity. Many companies that attend university
career fairs hire students from a wide variety of col
leges. This fair was a lost opportunity for students
and companies. More advertising by people who
were “in the know” could have made the fair a uni
versity-wide chance for learning more about compa
nies seeking employees in the liberal arts field.
These companies may not normally be accessible to
students outside the liberal arts college. With a little
more publicity and knowledge about the liberal arts
career fair, more of the A&M student population
could have benefited from it.
Compare the recent career fair of the liberal
arts college to the engineering career fair and
engineering week. The College of Engineering’s
career fair is one of the most publicized events
for colleges at A&M. One can walk just about
anywhere on campus and see fliers promoting
the fair. The fair has close to two hundred com
panies courting engineering students. The fair is
held in Reed Arena, and there are bus runs
specifically to take prospective employees to
the fair. Liberal arts college’s fair was held at
the Rudder Exhibition Hall, buried in the center
of the Rudder Complex. Students walking by
could have missed it and many did.
The engineering college also has an engi
neering week. This event, characterized by a
week of lectures, showcases professors work
and games promoting engineering. The Liberal
Arts college has nothing of this sort. There is no
national liberal arts week; there is not even a
liberal arts day. Unfair as this seems, the prob
lem has not changed.
Problem number two is common to many univer
sities. Once a university gains prestige in one area,
the other areas are soon forgotten, and that school is
trapped in a stereotype that may be no longer true.
This is the case for A&M. When A&M was first
opened as the Agricultural and Mechanical College
of Texas, the name implied a school solely to edu
cate students in agriculture and mechanics. But now,
as the name has changed, so has A&M grown to in
clude other areas. The liberal arts college has a high
ly-distinguished staff including recipients of the Na
tional Endowment for the Arts, fellowships to a
winner of the American Psychological Association
award for best teaching of psychology. Not only are
these awards numerous, the College of Liberal Arts
also has the largest tenured faculty on campus —
320 staff members.
For such a recognized university, stereotypes like
the one regarding liberal arts should not exist. The
Department of Economics within the College of Lib
eral Arts is ranked among the top 25 departments
in the country. The nautical archaeology program
within the department of Anthropology under the
liberal arts college is world-renown for its work.
These facts alone should break down the old sci
ence-only stereotype.
It seems with all these merits and awards, the rest
of the nation and world has recognized a fact that
many Aggies have yet to discover. A&M is no
longer an “agriculture” school. It has a strong Col
lege of Liberal Arts that needs to be recognized. The
inequality emphasized by the career fairs by the dif
ferent colleges at A&M is a misguided representa
tion of the campus. The College of Liberal Arts de
serves the same recognition from the campus it has
received from the world. The future is not only sci
ence and technology, but a balanced education that
includes liberal arts.
Brieanne Porter is a freshman chemical
engineering major.
MAIL CALL
Mock wedding
reverend responds
\n response to Jessica Andrew’s Feb.
17 mail call.
I was the reverend who per
formed the symbolic weddings of
Feb. 14th. Rather than being a
“false prophet,” I sought only to
bring light to the intolerance that
many TAMU students and faculty
have toward same sex marriage
and the GLBT “lifestyle” in gener
al. Isn’t light into the noncompre
hending darkness a very important
point of John, Chapter 1?
There have been some who
have said that we are calling
down the wrath of god. Be that
as it may, we are still here.
We’ve been here since before
Christ gave temporal power to
Caesar and we’ll be here when
the last trumpet sounds. We are
here because that is how god
wishes it to be. There is no de
sire to “corrupt” anyone else
into being homosexual or to de
grade any of the social and reli
gious institutions Christians
and others hold dear; merely
the desire to extend the same
rights and privileges everyone
else has. “No special rights or
guarantees, merely equity under
law,” to quote my sermon.
Has it ever crossed anyone’s
mind that homosexuality was
banned for health or economic
reasons? The same was true for
eating pork and wearing clothing
of mixed fabric, so why not extend
the principle?
God’s purpose in making me
gay is his own to ponder, I’m sim
ply submitting to the will of god.
I can’t speak for others, but this
is how I feel. I cannot claim to be
proud for simply being who I am,
but I will never be ashamed to be
what God intended me to be.
Rev. Jason H. Bennett
Class of ’03
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may be submitted in person at 013 Reed Mc
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