About secure systems and media hype...

Roy Osehrove wrote: "I wonder what would have happened if something like this was discovered in another company's ultra-secure system. Would they hype be just as big? would it go laregly unnoticed, or fade in 2 days? I wonder."

This is easy to answer: There won't be any hype.

If you check out at bugtraq, the amounts of holes in Oracle 9i, a system which was touted to be unbreakable, you'll probably not remember the large amount of articles about these security vulnerabilities in this unbreakable system. The reason for not remembering the large amount of articles about these holes is because these articles weren't there. At least not as frequent as the articles about this passport hole.

When I read the troll-articles about potential creditcard-theft over at the major sites (cnet/zdnet/slashdot etc) to attracked visitors, I always wonder if these editors even have a creditcard. I mean... I doubt they ever dare to use it, since in every place where you use a creditcard a potential creditcard-thief can copy your creditcard-credentials.