Deadly Attacks, Stupid Aftereffects

Many of you would have seen photos of upturned dustbins in the newspapers and websites following the serial bomb blasts in Delhi on September 13. Why? Because a couple of bombs had been placed inside dustbins.

The Economic Times reports that The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is contemplating new norms for WiFi security. Why? Because the terrorists claimed responsibility for the blasts via emails sent through unsecured WiFi networks.

It's a different tale that our media has been reporting that the WiFi networks were 'hacked' into. Why? Because 'hacking' sounds more sinister or they don't understand technology (many in the television industry and some in the print definitely don't but just simply claim to). Going by the dictionary they might not be wrong, as hacking does imply unauthorised access. But real-life meanings of terms differ more than a little from what the lexicons state. Hacking would atleast involve a bit of more effort than just connecting to an available open WiFi network (That makes me a hacker too)

Coming back to where I began.Terrorists might not be able to plant bombs in upturned dustbins (though it doesn't take much effort to make one upright again), they will simply keep them elsewhere. But then how do I, in the meanwhile, keep Delhi clean? Dump the banaana peel on the foothpath so that a disgruntled mass murderer, looking for an alternative place to hide the bomb, because someone turned his favourite dustbin upside down, would slip and deservedly break a few bones?

By the way, terrorists had also entered the Parliament. It should have been a good idea to keep the place sealed, so that that they cannot ever think of even entering it in the future.

If terrorists have amongst them the 'hackers' that the media and the police claim, it shouldn't be too much of a worry for them to gain access to some 'secured' connections. Else they can simply drop a letter. Or mask their IPs. Too much effort has already been wasted in tracing the source of the emails, nothing much will come out of that. I believe the men, who seem to play their dirty game according to their own rules at a time they wish to, wouldn't be as stupid as our investigating agencies hope they would be.

We have developed an expertise for knee-jerk reactions that border on stupidity. Why? Because we don't seem to have the most potent weapon to disarm such acts of terror - intelligence.