Why not go straight to the source?

Almost all of us have experienced some sort of computer virus related incident, be it unwanted popups, twitter scams or the more recent Trademe malware virus. When I think of hackers I think of people like 'The Warlock' from Die Hard 4.0, living in their mothers basement surrounded by Star Wars collectibles.

Maybe the challenge isn't to cause damage, but just to prove it can be done?

This is the only reason I can think of that these people don't just go straight to the source. If someone really wanted to cause damage to 'the system' they apparently need only head to the right beach with a sturdy hand saw. It seems ironic that we try so hard to protect our customs borders but do so little to protect the two little old under sea pipes that carry all our internet traffic.

Seems like a wee bit of a lapse in security there, guys.

It's all fun and games using hacker skills to take down twitter, or plant viruses on trademe but totally crippling the internet access of an entire country is a pretty extreme action. Apparently easy to do, but definitely a big step towards testing out the new terrorism laws.

The morale of the story? It's cool to be a hacker but take a saw to an under sea internet cable and you'll be one dead Vietnamese fisherman.