In 1995, the internet was still young, cybersecurity was barely becoming a mainstream concern, and a piece of software was about to terrify the technology world.
Its name was SATAN.
That was not a coincidence.
SATAN stood for Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks, software created by security experts Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema to automatically scan computer networks for known security vulnerabilities.
Today, we might describe that as an early form of automated cybersecurity testing.
In 1995, some people saw something much darker.
The fear was simple: if software could automatically find weaknesses in computer systems, why give it to everyone?
The argument sounds remarkably familiar in 2026.
Only this time, replace SATAN with artificial intelligence.
The panic started before the software was even released
When Farmer and Venema announced that SATAN would be freely distributed over the internet, controversy erupted.
Critics feared that hackers could use the software to locate vulnerable computers and attack them more efficiently. Farmer was even pushed out of his job at Silicon Graphics amid the controversy surrounding the planned release.
The Washington Post reported fears that the software could become a hacker's tool.
TIME called SATAN one of the most dreaded computer programs since the Michelangelo virus.
The imagery became almost comical.
The program had a deliberately provocative name, a satanic theme and a creator who understood that controversy would attract attention.
But underneath the jokes was a serious technological argument.
SATAN could identify weaknesses that criminals could potentially exploit.
The fear wasn't completely imaginary.
But there was another side to SATAN
Farmer and Venema weren't trying to build a weapon for hackers.
They were trying to solve a security problem.
SATAN was designed to help system administrators identify vulnerabilities so they could fix them before attackers discovered them.
Its documentation explained the problems it found and provided information about possible remedies. It did not simply break into machines and hand control to the person running it.
That distinction was central to the creators' argument.
If the vulnerabilities already existed, hiding the tools that exposed them wouldn't necessarily make computers safer.
It could actually make them less safe.
The bad guys already knew many of the weaknesses.
Why shouldn't defenders have the same capabilities?
That argument would become one of the defining principles of modern cybersecurity.
Then came the great test
SATAN was released publicly in April 1995.
And something interesting happened.
The predicted digital apocalypse didn't arrive.
The Los Angeles Times reported increased network activity as administrators and curious users experimented with the program, but there was no immediate explosion of hacking. CERT reported that it was essentially business as usual.
That doesn't mean the fears were completely stupid.
SATAN was genuinely dual-use technology.
A legitimate security administrator could use it to identify vulnerabilities.
A malicious actor could use similar capabilities to identify targets.
Both statements could be true at the same time.
That is the important lesson.
Technology doesn't have to be harmless for the panic surrounding it to be exaggerated.
And now we have AI
Fast-forward three decades.
We are having almost the same argument.
AI systems can write software.
They can analyse enormous quantities of information.
They can generate convincing images, audio and video.
They can discover patterns humans might miss.
And increasingly, AI agents can interact with computer systems and help identify vulnerabilities.
That last capability brings us almost directly back to SATAN.
Anthropic's MYTHOS, for example, has been described as an AI system capable of automating aspects of vulnerability discovery. The idea immediately triggers the same question that surrounded SATAN:
What happens when powerful cybersecurity capabilities become widely accessible?
The difference is that AI can potentially do much more than the tools of 1995.
That deserves serious attention.
But it also deserves historical perspective.
Fear is not the same thing as evidence
This is where today's AI conversation can become distorted.
Every new capability seems to arrive with two competing narratives.
One side says:
This will change everything.
The other says:
This could destroy everything.
Both narratives attract attention.
Both can be profitable.
And both can be wrong.
The history of technology is filled with predictions that sounded convincing at the time but failed to materialise in the way people expected.
SATAN didn't destroy the internet.
The internet also didn't become safe simply because SATAN existed.
Reality was more complicated.
The tool became part of a broader evolution in cybersecurity.
That is probably a better model for thinking about AI.
But let's not make the opposite mistake
There is a temptation to use historical examples like SATAN to dismiss modern AI concerns completely.
That would be another form of fearmongering — just in reverse.
AI is not SATAN.
Modern AI systems have capabilities that extend far beyond automated vulnerability scanning.
They can generate code, manipulate information, operate across multiple digital environments and increasingly act with some degree of autonomy.
Recent experiments have demonstrated that AI agents can identify and exploit vulnerabilities in connected devices, illustrating both the defensive potential and the risks of AI-assisted cybersecurity.
So yes, there are genuine risks.
The question is whether society is capable of discussing those risks without turning every technological advance into an apocalypse story.
The SATAN lesson is not “don't worry”
It is more useful than that.
The lesson is:
Don't confuse capability with catastrophe.
A tool capable of finding vulnerabilities doesn't automatically create hackers.
A model capable of writing malware doesn't automatically create cyberwar.
A system capable of generating misinformation doesn't automatically destroy democracy.
Capabilities create possibilities.
Human beings, institutions, incentives and safeguards determine how those possibilities become reality.
That distinction matters enormously.
The people building the technology should also be questioned
There is another uncomfortable similarity between 1995 and today.
Technology companies and technology researchers often have complicated incentives.
Companies benefit from excitement around new technology.
Governments benefit from narratives that justify regulation, surveillance or restrictions.
Security companies benefit when people are worried about security.
AI companies can benefit from both optimism and fear.
The optimistic narrative can attract investment.
The fear narrative can strengthen the argument that only highly controlled organisations should have access to the most powerful systems.
That doesn't mean the risks are fabricated.
It means we should ask better questions.
Who benefits from this particular narrative?
What evidence supports the prediction?
What actually happened when similar technology appeared before?
And perhaps most importantly:
Are we regulating demonstrated harm, or regulating our imagination of what might happen?
The danger of AI fearmongering
Fear can be useful.
It can force governments to prepare.
It can make companies improve security.
It can expose vulnerabilities before criminals exploit them.
But excessive fear can also produce bad policy.
If every powerful technology is treated as inherently dangerous, innovation becomes something society must apologise for.
And if governments respond by concentrating technological power in the hands of a few institutions, we could end up creating another problem while trying to solve the first.
That is precisely why the SATAN story remains relevant.
In 1995, Farmer's controversial argument was essentially that security improves when defenders have the tools to understand their vulnerabilities.
Thirty-one years later, we're asking a much bigger version of the same question:
Should powerful AI capabilities be locked away because they can be abused — or made accessible enough that society can learn how to defend against them?
There is no easy answer.
But history tells us something important.
The arrival of a frightening new capability does not automatically mean the apocalypse has arrived.
Sometimes, it means society has encountered a tool whose consequences it hasn't learned how to manage yet.
That is a very different thing.
From SATAN to AI
The name SATAN helped create the panic.
Today, the word AI sometimes plays a similar role.
Put “AI” before almost anything — AI hacker, AI weapons, AI misinformation, AI replacing jobs, AI destroying humanity — and the headline immediately becomes more frightening.
But we should resist the temptation to confuse a frightening headline with a demonstrated threat.
The right response to powerful technology is neither blind optimism nor permanent panic.
It is testing, evidence, transparency, safeguards and accountability.
In 1995, the internet survived SATAN.
It survived hackers.
It survived viruses.
It survived countless predictions that the digital world was about to collapse.
The lesson isn't that we should stop worrying about AI.
The lesson is that we should worry intelligently.
Because if history teaches us anything, it is that the future is rarely as catastrophic — or as utopian — as the people selling us either story would have us believe.
Comments
Post a Comment