
Osborne’s National Spider Plan – Replacing “cyber” with “spider” in a gov speech - rmc
http://jackofkent.com/2015/11/george-osbornes-national-spider-plan/
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daveguy
You know what stops spider attacks better than anything? Boots on the ground.
Squish.

~~~
DonHopkins
"There's an app for that!" ;)

Pantomime Bug Squish:
[https://vimeo.com/145017503](https://vimeo.com/145017503)

Growing Giant Bugs: [https://vimeo.com/144954809](https://vimeo.com/144954809)

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jerf
"And so inspired by Jennie Rigg’s brilliant tweet, here are extracts from
George Osborne’s speech today, with “cyber” replaced with “spider”.

And it makes just as much sense."

No it doesn't. That's crazy. "Spiderspace"? The term "cyberspace" may be prone
to abuse but it does mean something. "Cyber security" means something real.
"Cyber-age" means something real. I'd prefer "computer" for the latter two,
but it doesn't change the fact that "computer/cyber security" is a real
problem. Nobody's going to hack into a spider and break all your grid
electrical generators by over-revving them.

This is clearly just "I don't like X therefore all negative claims about X
must be true". The claim that this speech makes just as much sense is so
transparently ludicrous I can't imagine where else it comes from.

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Roboprog
Like most political speeches, it's lacking details. Replacing the threat name
is funny because the vagueness still fits.

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Roboprog
I'm surprised this comment was upvoted. I considered it a "PSA from Captain
Obvious"

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Roboprog
I am reminded of a scene at the end of the Sci Fi novel "The Mote in God's
Eye" (note: title describes appearance of a local asterism - the book is a
"first contact" type story). The alien ambassadors come back to meet the human
politicians who throw a parade and start speechifying. The boss alien asks the
translator minions "What is he saying?", to which they respond ... "but he has
said nothing!"

"Then you shall respond in kind."

~~~
oxryly1
Or like in the movie "Wing of Honneamise", a character goes to meet with
officials and speaks for awhile in the standard language. One of the officials
says, aside, to him "you can switch to vernacular if you like". The character
responds, "oh, well in in that case I'm done speaking."

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mtgx
Joking aside, I think it's a fundamental problem to allow _secret spy
agencies_ to be in charge of a country's digital security. A cybersecurity
agency should be easily reviewed for abuses. That's not possible with a spy
agency. Not to mention the whole conflict of interest between offense and
defense. How many times will the GCHQ decide to let some defenses compromised
in order for it to maintain its offensive capability? That's an unacceptable
conflict of interest.

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spacecowboy_lon
You woudl rather a bunch of ex plods (ones who had to take medical retirement
_nudge_ _nudge_ ) who will sell juicey bits to their News international mates
down the pub.

I know the type, met some of them British telecom when they tried to kibosh
the internet as just some fad the "girls " in marketing where keen on.

Or Would you rather put Talk Talk in charge as they have done so well.

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rjknight
The spiders are not insects, but in a war they will side with the insects.
Traitors, traitors, spider traitors - they'll betray us and they'll make us
human slaves, in an insect nation!

~~~
bitwize
I, for one, welcome... oh, never mind.

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akerro
>that right now GCHQ is monitoring spider threats from high end adversaries
against 450 companies across the aerospace, defence, energy, water, finance,
transport and telecoms sectors.

Soo... German Samsung, Boeing, Iranian power plants, Gemalto?

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JDeArte
Now all I can think of is Futurama's Zapp Brannigan declaring war on
Tarantulon 6 against the Spidarians
[http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Tarantulon_6](http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Tarantulon_6)

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mokus
"cyber to spider" would be a fun new addition to the "cloud to butt" browser
extension.

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Karunamon
Chrome has "Word Replacer 2" that lets you define your own replacements. This
one is definitely going into rotation now...

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mtgx
Does the speech address spidersex, too?

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Roboprog
Hmm. There ought to be a "Deepness in the Sky" joke in here, somewhere.
Perhaps somebody remembers the appropriate details?

I'm sure there's an appropriate time and place for spidersex, as long as it
doesn't impact our cold war...

~~~
DonHopkins
Gokna noticed, too. "Poor babies. They're the only ones she can scare. Watch!
I'm gonna Give Ten to the Honored Pedure."

She turned away from the window and ran to the side wall—and then up the rack
of audio tapes. The girls were seven years old, much too big for acrobatics.
Oops. The rack was freestanding. It swayed out from the wall, tapes and
assorted junk sliding to the edge of each shelf. Gokna reached the top before
anyone but Viki realized what was happening. And from there she leaped out,
grabbing the top molding of the soundstage window.

The rest of her body swung down against the glass with a solid splat sound.
For an instant, she was a perfect Ten splayed out across the window. On the
far side of the glass, Pedure stared in stupefied shock. The two girls
shrieked with laughter. It wasn't often you could give such a perfect Ten,
flaring your underwear in the target's face.

~~~
Roboprog
It's not every day you can "BA" an upstanding public figure :-)

Guess it helps if your parents are the alien equivalents of say a "Tesla"
(quirky scientist/inventor) and (a big black widow version of) a "Doolittle"
(general promoting modern warfare tactics).

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rootbear
This is hilarious. I dislike how the word cyber has been used for things far
from its original meaning. But I'm not sure I like "computer attack" any
better than "cyber attack". Information ware fare? Offensive data war?

But this also makes me want to name some cyber security app "Shelob".

