Die Hard 4 and Russia's rejection to cooperate in cyberattack investigations

July 11, 2007

Just saw Die Hard 4. Classic “action comedy” with Bruce Willis. I understand it’s distributed under the names “Live Free or Die Hard” in the US and “Die Hard 4” in Europe. Hm.

It’s actually a pretty timely movie, as it deals with cyberattacks :) and the scariest part is that although a lot has been artistically exaggerated to make it more watchable, it’s not as far off the mark as many other scifi-type things. A lot of what’s shown is possible today, for example, social engineering of the OnStar-type system.

I don’t think many utilities are as easy to get to as is shown, but the world is definitely headed towards global always-on interconnectivity, and there will always be spooks to take advantage of it. And already today, some of them appear to be state-sponsored, as Russia refuses to cooperate with Estonia with cyberattack investigations, implying that there’s something to hide.