1.   Ground-based tracking stations can be attacked and skilled hackers can disrupt their computer systems.

2.   Not long after Mitnick was believed to have moved to Colorado, a skilled hacker broke into an Internet service provider there.

3.   Skilled hackers could conceivably execute nasty little programs as the program halts.

4.   Skilled hackers, Palmer noted, are scarce these days, at least ones that he will hire.

5.   Technological change in Russia is still largely dictated by middle-aged bureaucrats, not skilled young hackers.

6.   Web-based e-mail accounts like Hotmail have also proved themselves in the past to be vulnerable to skilled hackers.