932: CIA
| CIA |
 Title text: It was their main recruiting poster, hung nearly ten feet up a wall! This means the hackers have LADDER technology! Are we headed for a future where everyone has to pay $50 for one of those locked plexiglass poster covers? More after the break ... |
Explanation
This comic is a reference to the recent attacks by a group briefly known as LulzSec, which was a splinter group from the internet community known as Anonymous (also featured in 834:_Wikileaks). In the back of the news report in frame one is the logo that was used by LulzSec. The group was able to publicize several high profile attacks. They were able to briefly take down the CIA website using a DDoS attack. DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service in which the attacker uses many computers to send traffic to a host and render it incapable of answering requests from any other computer, effectively taking the site down.
This comic is pointing out the difference between what lay-people and the computer experts hear when seeing a story like this. It is comparing a website to a company's poster, which is much different and less harmful than the actual hacking of actual computers.
Transcript
- [A television is showing a news anchor. The inset picture of the news shows Anonymous wearing a monocle and top hat.]
- Anchor: Hackers briefly took down the website of the CIA yesterday...
- [Ponytail is watching television.]
- What people hear:
- Anchor: Someone hacked into the computers of the CIA!!
- [Megan is watching television.]
- What computer experts hear:
- Anchor: Someone tore down a poster hung up by the CIA!!
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