Posted on 08/28/2009 1:25:39 AM PDT by craigedwards
The Internet has now become a vital outlet for commerce, communications & social networking to name a few, and has now breed an over-dependence in our daily lives. It's also become a target from more sinister factions and made our critical infrastructure now extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks.
I have just completed a 4 week period of research and production for an audio documentary called 'The Slow Road to Cybersecurity'. What I have encountered, has made me wish I had never known about it.
Cybersecurity has now entered a new era of concern, our risk and vulnerability is becoming a major concern for both the government and the Private Sector networks. Is America prepared & capable in preventing a significant cyberattack over it's networks?
Since the Clinton Administration, all the way to the Obama Administration, dealing with the Cybersecurity has never quite been resolved. In the meantime, the cyber attack arsenal of cyber espionage, Denial of Service Attacks and Cyber Terrorism are increasing more than ever.
We seem to be heading down 'The Slow Road to Cybersecurity'. All attempts to address these concerns are have been unsuccessful at the Government and Private Sector level. There is a growing sense that we have entered borrowed time which brings a new degree of urgency. Any post attack will bring a groundswell of questions over how such vulnerability within our networks was allowed manifest over such a long period. Once again, I wish I hadn't found out about this saga running in the background.
The Slow Road to Cybersecurity” is a comprehensive audio report addressing the unsuccessful approach towards Cybersecurity America has taken. How America is now at a greater risk to cyber attacks now more then ever. How a complacent Private Sector, Government and a network of civilian computers could become the 'Prefect Storm'.
This detailed audio report features interviews with Rep. Langevin of Rhode Island, Dr. James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Gregory Garcia former Department Of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity, Kevin G. Coleman of the Technolytics Institute and Jay Stanley of the ACLU National Tech and Liberty Project in Washington D.C.
The project can be downloaded at http://www.solidprinciples.com or found at iTunes.
I want a road even less traveled considering... flag@whitehouse.gov
Well, this issue transcends one administration. It’s something that has occupied three administrations. In fact the report talks about a major intrusion into government resources from unknown sources and then classified top secret after it happened (could have been Chinese or North Korean or Russian attacks). This could be setting up an attack over these vectors in preparation for an all-out attack. That’s very likely. I understand the Chinese have teams probing the U.S.
And, of course, the issue, when discussing these things always comes down to civil liberties versus national security (or security in general).... it’s a long-standing argument in any case...
The interesting thing here — is — that anyone who has a distrust in the Obama Administration (in regards to this security and the measures needed to secure the network) — would actually be taking the *liberal position* of organization like ACLU for “privacy” versus government action in terms of being able to protect itself and its citizens (which is usually a more ‘conservative issue”... :-) ....).
Also, the interesting thing about this “cyber-security” issue.... it gives the reason for one of the bank failures this year was not adequate enough cyber-security for the bank causing it to lose 22% of its “assets” (through cyber-attack and transferring 22% of its assets out of the bank). This was a major cause of the failure of the bank.
So, some crooks got the money, and we got the “benefit” of “bailing out the bank” because the crooks took away enough of their assets to cause them to fail...
You've given much to consider in your post.
Yes, the issue transcends at LEAST 3 administrations (perhaps going back to the initiation of Social Security numbers and its transgression into an identifier?). Then it leads to what is or should/not be public knowledge (accessible by anyone/country)
Trusting our Government is the key item to deal with (starting at the local level -- but we're well past that here).
Yes, our Country is & has been under attack (physically, economically and now cyber/virtually). We do the same to other countries and trust our government to be benign in doing so.
We DON'T consider it benign or in our best interest when our Gov does the same to us however (example, not to thread drift: compiling a master database of medical records?)
Freedom requires some risk, perhaps more now than ever before. It probably also requires MORE personal responsibility than ever before (in order to keep government out of our business/lives).
I doubt that a network can be secure unless it is "intra" v "inter". Even with those systems (and terminals without access ports), it only takes one IT dufus, accessing his terminal to corrupt the whole system.
Consider how convoluted our road systems are in many towns... our computer systems are similar. It's not feasible to start over at this point. [almost, but not quite as bad as liberals :) ]
While I understand your use of, I don't consider the ACLU to be plausible as a 'measuring' unit concerning freedom.
They can be "for/against" a cause due to legitimate (ie Constitutional) legalities, while being "for/against" another cause which is 'legal' owing to emotional reasonings. Common sense is not a base for law anymore.
As to my original post, I have little faith/trust in government, when initiatives, legally voted upon and passed, are then denied/overturned by the courts which were put in place to ensure voters rights/desires.
(I grew up in Mass and there were constant reminders of Lexington, Concord and Minuteman. I learned those lessons well.)
True and I have no idea how to correct that (well above my pay grade).
Do you recall an early hack where a programmer 'skimmed' a tenth of a cent off of each 'partial' cent transaction? Do the math... he got caught, couldn't handle the amount of money accumulated.
IT folk can handle that stuff (I hope).
We need to handle control the Barney Franks and Chris Dodds that allowed for the almost worldwide economic collapse.
1st of all, thank you for all your comments on this audio documentary.
I couldn’t talk to everyone for this report. I really wanted to, but also knew I was on borrowed time as the topic was drifting to the top of news articles. The day after this report was released, Drudge linked to CNET about s773 bill. In a way I was trying not to get scooped but it ended up arriving at the same time as others. I did this report to get the ball rolling on discussion and also for other people to attend to the gaps to report later on.
I see the s773 bill as the legislative attempt at Cyber Reform and something which would speed up the attempt to address the open private sector which has been slow in securing. As much as I disagree with the bill, it may have opened the lines of discussion, but I see this attempt like all others at cyber security to fail as well.
People like Glenn Beck is using the S773 as a “See, what they’re trying to do to you” point and that becomes a ‘Conservative Cringeworthy’ moment. The real issue is that cyber security reform has failed and you can’t make this a partisan issue. The risk America is facing should make people more vocal in pressing the private sector and Government to get this solved once and for all. Also, to secure their own computers from becoming infected and becoming part of a BotNet.
The most revealing points in the Audio Report was Rep. Langevin of RI, when he mentioned he wanted the civil libs groups involved and the ACLU rep I interviewed said it was a hype and a power grab. No one is in agreement and that is why we are not prepared to solve this issue.
The process after a significant cyber attack, will be worse then we imagine.
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