Sobering examples of what one person can do

Two quotes I shared (via email) with some friends today:

The first, dealing with L'Affaire Kerviel:

The [30-year old] SocGen rogue trader managed to annihilate an amount of money that surpasses the yearly output of the economy of 112 countries, among them Madagascar, Mozambique, and war-torn Afghanistan, all of which have population sizes larger than 15 million.

And the second dealing with last years cyberattacks on Estonia that, at the time, were thought to be coming from Russia:

The fact that a single angry student was able to impact international relations between two countries is an startling development.

[...]

The fact that a single student was able to trigger such events is particularly ominous when you consider just how many potential flashpoints exist between various countries all over the world.

[...]

The DoS attack against Estonia is an excellent example of how a cyberattack carried out by a 20-year-old student in response to real-life events further exacerbated an existing problem between two nations.

One person replied, "the [Mathematica] code is cool, but it's freaky that one person can affect the economy like that."

—Michael A. Cleverly
Friday, January 25, 2008 at 19:22