Go Ahead, Make Ashcroft's Day Misc.7/23/2001; 2:08:20 PM 'So on Friday afternoon, when Ashcroft announced a tough-on-hacking initiative to combat the people of "poor and evil motivations" who seek to bring down the world's precious computers, did cyber-punks flinch and ask themselves if they felt lucky?'Not likely.... The new program will create a cadre of specialized cybercrime attorneys -- called "computer hacking and intellectual property" units, or, stupidly, CHIPs. They'll be based at 10 field offices around the country, from which, Ashcroft promised, they'll be able to respond like lightning to any digital threats....'But that's all the program consists of -- lawyers. Though he cited several statistics to prove to the assembled media how big a problem computer crime is, Ashcroft's was a gospel of prosecution, not of cyber security. His message, peppered as it was with such misnomers as "hacker" to mean "cyber-criminal," indicated a fundamental ignorance of the computer security community and their ethic.'The article has a couple of good examples of why this is not a good thing. If they were half serious, couldn't they afford maybe one technical person on staff?