Zombie Bots in Bryan!

by

Robert Leleux

Hello Gang!

So, this is definitely non-news, but I couldn’t help passing it on, because there’s just something about it that I found vaguely amusing.  

According to a short article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle by Vimal Patel, the website of the George HW Bush Presidential Library and Museum was hacked last weekend.  

Apparently, the hackers wrote the following messages on the website: “‘Say hi for George Bush. LOL. Saudi hackers,’ ‘i hate amireca,’ and some writing in Arabic, officials said.”

That’s not the amusing part.  Because I’m sure it’s incredibly irritating to manage a website that idiots are constantly trying to vandalize–and honestly, I do feel for anybody who has to contend with such stresses.

But here is the amusing part, supplied to us by Pierce Cantrell, who is identified as “vice president and associate provost for information technology,” and was quoted as saying the following: “This is the kind of thing we take seriously….This one was, thank goodness, not very serious.”  

The reason that this sort of threat is to be taken very seriously, is, according to the article, because Pierce Cantrell feels that “the profile of someone who performs this kind of mischief has changed over time, and is now more likely than 15 years ago to be someone with malicious intent….”

AND THEN, Cantrell is quoted as making the following marvelous remark: “Much of the activity is nefarious.  People are trying to break into machines to turn them into zombie bot armies….”

WTF?  Zombie bot armies?  I mean, I am aware that “bot,” is, as used here, techno-slang for “computer virus,” and “zombie” is techno-slang for “infected computer,” and apparently some idiot hackers break into a whole bunch of computers and then send out a whole lot of idiot, idiot spam with them, thus forming an “army.”  All of which is very irritating and costly, I’m sure.  But honestly, folks, “zombie bot armies?”  

Now, I don’t want to name any names here, but I think there might be somebody in Bryan who might need a vacation, because somebody might be taking his job just a little too seriously.  

There might be a certain person who’s stopped seeing himself as a computer engineer, and begun to think of himself as the last line of defense between humanity…and the coming zombie bot army.

Now, I could be wrong.  I could be making light of something very serious, very “nefarious” and “malicious,” that I don’t understand.  And if I am, then I fear I shan’t have the chance to apologize to Vice-President Pierce Cantrell, who will, I’m afraid, have the last laugh after the invasion of the zombie bots.

Love Y’all, 

Robert 

Oh, and here’s a link to the full article: http://www.theeagle.com/local/Officials–Bush-website-hacked