SAY IT ISN'T SO

Why didn't they just put it on some USB disks and drop them around the streets of London? Or slap some Google stickers and a fake camera on top of a car and engage in a bit of wardriving? If the thing is a zero-day worm it doesn't matter where the point of injection is...

Yeah, OK, I admit... dramatic effect. I've heard of it. I suppose a single point of command and control makes sense for the telly, even if there's no technical reason why a DDOS worm should need one. But perhaps I've said to much already... hence the helicopter...

This bit is scary and wrong-headed: "[The Home Office] also confirmed that in extreme circumstances, it would be possible for the UK government to close down the internet."

Firstly, that's a terrible response to a DDOS attack. Attacker wants to shut down parts of the Internet and you go and give them exactly what you want. WTF? Secondly, is anyone else worried that UK.gov has (or claims to have, at any rate) this power and would consider using it in a case it thinks is an emergency? What exactly constitutes an emergency in that case? I'll leave the paranoid conspiracy theorists to start shouting about false flag operations and the like. But finally, I have to ask "oh really?" because it's a bit hard for one country to shut down the Internet, whether they think they should have that power or not.

Actually, this has already been done by the US Navy in the 70's.

A specially designed submarine (USS Halibut) attached a tapping device on Russian military seabed telephone cables under Operation "Ivy Bells".

Operated for months on stretch, recording military signals traffic for later analysis by the NSA.

Make the Spooks plot somewhat more plausible.

Bloody awful. Wooden acting of scripts that were so far from reality that they were painful. A hitwoman that plants a car bomb and then goes and stands with her intended victims ( I'd be running the other way, wouldn't you?). The guys who are told to go and get her are told her code name and from that they know what car shes driving and what she looks like. I could go on but it just makes you want to cry. Great photography, lousy content.

It's been widely reported that a US submarine has tapped into an undersea communications cable in the past.

http://cryptome.org/nsa-fibertap.htm

There are techniques for tapping into fibre optic cables without any break in the cable or the data passing over the cable.

http://www.securitypark.co.uk/article.asp?articleid=26880

However, as you say, it's far easier to inject data from some cybercafe.

The US navy managed to plant devices which intercept Soviet comms cables back in the 70's - pretty sure it was off Vladivostock. As I recall the idea was that subs would visit the tap every couple of months and retrieve the tapes - eventually it was discoered and the device ca now be seen in a museum in Moscow.

Also the new US Seawolf class sub, USS Carter, is rumoured to have the ability to have the ability to tap undersea cables - no smoke without fire and all that...

really, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells

"In fact they could probably do just as much damage launching the programme from an internet café in Ealing"

But when keeping the citizens scared shitless one has to increase fear, paranoia and hatred but without inducing panic. Otherwise it is counter-productive to the gravy train and agenda.

And aren't fibre optic cables un-tappable, due to the essential property of total internal reflection? Maybe technology's moved on since I was at school. I spent most of Tuesday night's episode laughing...

but from a USB key, left in a rear facing port of a computer in an Internet café in Ealing, ready to be triggered by the next login.

Mine's the one with the "Knighthood for Q" campaign badge on it.

Although I like the show, and find the plots entertaining, the number of technical errors is sometimes unbelievable.

Take the supposed submarine transmission intercepted by Malcolm - a signal at 542 nanometres? Sorry, but that's visible light - not likely to be used for comms.

And the whole idea of crashing the subs computers using a virus - bollocks. If you can identify which cable it's tapped into, you just shut down the router to which it connects and send a boat with a few depth charges to smarten Ivan up.

I could list more, but it winds me up too much - I'll consult for free on the rest of the series if they want, just to avoid having to shout at the telly when it's on.

but why did Adam have to drive to an open square - the nearest tunnel, bridge, courtyard or underground carpark would surely have done ?

The North Sea is not off the coast of Cornwall.

Anyone else think that before the sub lost power, the screen should have flickered and "all your sub are belong to us" should have appeared on screen?

Oh, and I know it's a bit far fetched, but couldn't the Russians have had a Gypsy on board with a dowsing rod to tell them which way to swim to the cable?

frankly speaking - ye' good ol' nuke makes more damage.

Denial of service of hundred of websites... what's the point?

let's burn into ashes the server THAT'S A DENIAL OF SERVICE

My immediate reaction is "what a load of cobblers!" but I suppose in reality it wouldn't be so hard, considering that pretty much everything is run by a handful of top level entities... switch them off and I guess things would go pop for a while.

I'd like to know, however, which trigger happy civil servant has his hand hovering over the big red button, though. And whether or not there'd be an Independence Day / Armageddon launch procedure with the word coming from Gordon Brown... bunch of SAS storm in to the "Internet control building", clutching metal briefcases, request the use of some poor soul's "station", all that double key must be turned at the same time nonsense...

Oh come on! I watched it with my girlfriend but do you think she wanted me to interject all the time with quips such as "That's not right" and "That wouldn't work"? NO! It's entertainment - enjoy it for what it is!

From one of my favourite websites:

http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/sub_wiretap/

You mean Bugs. I suspect if you watch it on DVD you'll realise your memory is rose-tinted.

Look, I like the show but the plots need work. Zero-day exploit? Jesus, it was like being forced to watch Independence Day.

Independence Day was an awesome movie, yes it was ridiculous to suggest that he could just plug and play network interface his mac with the alien space ship (back then you needed a phd to make one talk to a pc). And then there is the fact that if all they were using the satellites for was a countdown then surely it was entirely unnecessary, they could have just synchronised their clocks once before they arrived. And if they needed to remain in communication, the fact that they had a ship positioned over every major city on the planet, would mean they'd easily be able to manage near line of sight communication between themselves without the need for satellites.

But if you can suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy, energy weapons, apparent anti-gravity flight, force fields, and inter-stella flight then surely you can ignore the IT goofs too. it was great fun, and we got to see them blow up the whitehouse :)

I still enjoy Spooks but I do think it's gone downhill somewhat, and I wish they wouldn't cycle the cast so damn quickly, I still keep hoping that one day they'll bring Tom back in. (Some case where he was undercover, and needs to go back, or only he knew the identity of an informant who has key intelligence)

And I thought bugs was great back in the day, but was very disappointed when I got the Series 1 DVD, I guess the standard of TV acting has gotten higher.

Anyone remember a series the BBC ran for a very short while around the same time, called Crimetraveller?

``Oh come on! I watched it with my girlfriend but do you think she wanted me to interject all the time with quips such as "That's not right" and "That wouldn't work"? NO! It's entertainment - enjoy it for what it is!``

I would like to agree with you. Only problem with that is what our brilliant leaders tend to turn around and think this is reality, then act accordingly. Look at the security joke of liquid on airplanes. If I really wanted to cause trouble, an impossible binary liquid bomb would be the last think of my mind. Unfortunatly, the bad guys know how the real world works. O wait, aren`t our brilliant leaders the bad guys? I get confused

It's just TV you proles!

http://www.turnofftheinternet.com/

Oldie but a goodie :-P

Stop the car in an open area where the only source of shrapnel is the car and the blast can radiate freely in all directions except down (hmm, should have been a rather large crater and considerably more peripheral damage from a blast that size methinks - just look at footage from Iraq!), or the nearest enclosed space where the blast wave would have been constrained and the 'building' material converted into even more shrapnel?

Personally I would have thought the nearest river would be better - you might end up covering a large area with horrible smelly mud and smelly water, but at least the explosion would be well and truly contained (and shrapnel HATES traveling through water)...

It's a TV SHOW, for frack's sake. You don't really want the Beeb to go telling those nasty men in their black hats a really good way to make a mess, do you?

I rather thought that the idea of some government buffoon telling Harry that he should lower the threat level as the Great British Public needed some good news was a bit near the knuckle... surely our Beloved Leader and his friends would never consider trying to bury bad news, or spin the facts to make themselves look good... oops.

Ooh look, there's a Police helicopter hovering over (CLASSIFIED) at about (CLASSIFIED) feet, with a large (CLASSIFIED) pointing my way. And what's that coming through on my (CLASSIFIED) radio set to frequency band(CLASSIFIED)? "Target in sight, he's definitely got information of use to terrorists and he's sat at his compu....LI hdiwehg0[-e ;knlj )(&()^() ilqg8T 7 i <<CARRIER LOST>>

Well I for one sleep safe in my secret underground bunker knowing the Russkies would be no match for our techno-savy underwater Navy boys:-

"But to be honest, sometimes I just switch it off and on again."

And does the internet have a BIG scissor switch arrangement for being turned off and on? Please tell me it does.

Ker-Chunk!

"Internet off."

Ker-Chunk!

"Internet on."

Ker-Chunk!

"Internet off."

Ker-Chunk!

"Internet on."

It would be like using Sky broadband through one of their own brand routers so I'd personally not notice much difference.

Ker-Chunk!

"Internet off."

Ker-Chunk!

"Internet on."

Too true. Not much "off" Vladivostok either, but pretty bloody close in. Close enough, in fact, to be the dedicated military comms cable connecting the stations in the area that they were tapping. Back then, this required a sub to waffle in, remove the existing tapping device with its logs full of military chat, and attach a new one on a regular basis.

Eventually some Russki pillock snagged the cable with an anchor, requiring it to be repaired and the logging device was recovered. The Soviets would never have been able to prove who was responsible, but for the thoughtful inclusion of a little plate on the exterior surface with serial numbers, maker's name and such which rather helpfully included the words "Made in the USA" for the hard of thinking. Much was made of this at the time.

Of course, the Yanks furiously denied responsibility, claiming that it must have been a stitch up as they'd never be dumb enough to label the thing like that. History fails to record if anyone was dumb enough to believe that the Yanks aren't that dumb.

It wasn't a DDOS. It was a DOS sourced from a single location. That's just a DOS.

And the zero-day virus was no less silly than when Goldblum did it in Independence Day. Unless of course Russian subs run Windows.

And a signal at 500nm? That's not a radio frequency. It's the colour green.

The only good side to this episode was the killing off of the ultra-annoying Adam Carter.

Smiley, because he's turning in his grave.

"And what's that coming through on my (CLASSIFIED) radio set to frequency band(CLASSIFIED)? "

That'd be a TETRA radio, running encryption that means you could only hear it if the message was intended to be heard by you (or your group).

Sorry, your plot is about as accurate as the spooks plot!

As for the spooks storyline... they didn't seem to allow for the fact that the fibre optic cable would contain dozens or hundreds or strands, and for the intended attack to work they would need to identify and tap the correct one(s), rather than clamp something on the side with probes that push in and that's it.

So why would they bother , when a standard sea launched ICBM warhead detonated at an altitude of approximately thirty (30) miles or forty five (45) kilometres (below the Kaman line) up high over the Irish Sea would cause minimal property damage but would quite literally fry most modern micro processors for a minimum of one hundred and eighty (180) miles or approximately two hundred and eighty (280) kilometres radius from blast centre and even fuse overhead telephone cables all over Cardiff as well , nice one !

Wiki with references

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_altitude_nuclear_explosion#Soviet_high_altitude_tests

As Sting would say there is no thing as a winnable war and Joshua would comment in the film War Games "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? " .

On youtube are the declassified films and much more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6eLPLR_WPs