Slashdot Mirror
GOVNET In the Works
gtg010b writes: "According to USA Today, the U.S. government is considering a private network to be used for all government communications. This network would be "separate from the Internet to keep it safe from hackers or terrorists" according to Richard Clarke, the head of the president's "cyberspace security adviser." Whatever happened to government not being above the people?" Clarke is the guy who's been crying "cyber Pearl Harbor" for a few years; apparently if you cry wolf long enough you get promoted. His request (.doc format) is informative. I should point out that the U.S. military already has such a network (I'm not even going to ask why the Feds can't piggy-back on it), so GOVNET would be for critically-important government agencies like the Department of Agriculture to communicate.
Why not just encrypt across internet2 or something? i really don't understand why everyone is crying pearl harbor about everything anyway...
I think this would be a good test case for the government. They could use IPv6 and Internet2 standards, with full encryption of messages and full security.
Would be a good test case - if it works, then we can expect to see a clone system roll out in major cities within two years.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I guess I'm messed up, cause I thought the original inception of our current internet *wasn't* private either. So, what's the rukus? (aside from them already having one)
...and that's the end of our show. Donk!
>Whatever happened to government not being above
>the people?"
I think it is about the government being separated from the people. So this sentense per se is irrelevant.
So, they want to set up an intranet for the government. Why is this a bad thing? Should all corporations be required to use the internet for any and all communications between employees/remote sites/customers?
A private, secure network is by definition fairly small. The larger the network became (as would be necessary given the size of the US gov't), the more opportunity crackers would have to get in.
The goverment is simply too large to expect that a separate network would make it that much harder for crackers to get in.
Government action:
#1 legally restrict secure communications
#2 build private network for security
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.
If my memory serves me right, the Internet is the bigger grandson of ARPAnet, which was originally developed for secure voice and teletype transmissions.
I say "Bring it on!" Not for a hacking standpoint, because really, what's the point? I think that GOVNET will eventually become another arm of the Internet eventually. It only makes sense that at least one department (Office of Homeland Security comes to mind) will want a direct link to the Internet to make work easier, and then another and then another, and finally, the GOVNET will just be another section of the internet, the same way WAIS and GOPHER are today. I wouldn't worry.
BTW, my thought that ARPAnet was the start of it all is sort of correct. You can check it all out right here.
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
These networks can't even be "integrated" into one another because of different classifications levels etc. There isn't even a way to move data from low to high (systems of low classification to systems of higher classification), because the fact that the high network wants certain data from the low netowrk is sensitive itself.
"A better way, Rasch suggested, might be to improve the ways sensitive information is encrypted and sent over public networks such as the Internet"
It is my understanding that this is exactly how the DOD's classified networks work. I suppose I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
sHi
This is our government's security expert? This is his big plan to keep government data safe?
The Internet is everywhere. It's so purvasive that there is zero chance you can have any isolated network. The second some low-level government flunkie at the Bureau of Railroad Employee Retirement signed onto AOL to check his e-mail, boom, there's a gateway.
My thinking is that they plan to use GOVNET as an excuse to be lazy. Everything will have minimal authentication because there's no way big bad hackers can get on the network, right? Except that any PC on the network can easily become a gateway. There are plenty of examples of "private" and "secure" networks that were breached through classic hacking techniques like social engineering and wardialing.
This is stupid. What bout PPTP/VPN? Why can't they just make a virtual network that runs over the Internet like every other business is doing? The infrastructure costs are minimal because you aren't running redundant wiring. It's just as secure, in fact, it's more secure because you are going to be extra paranoid about things like password schemes and encryption levels if it has to survive some public data transfer points.
A few years ago, AOL tried to market this to companies. They called it EOL for Enterprise OnLine. Basically, for a fixed fee per user, all your employees got AOL accounts and access to a private keyword with your company's Intranet.
Except no one but Century21 ever signed up, as I suspect they got a good deal for being a test case. No one saw the point when security, done properly, is going to produce a much more versitile and cheaper result.
To make an analogy, this guys is suggesting that every government office get a tin can and a string so that they can communicate securely because there's alwaye the potential for someone to tap the phone lines.
Re-freakin-diculous.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Whatever happened to government not being above the people?
Nice troll. I suppose suppose you think that the government should allow us all into their LANs - firewall separate the people from the government. And they shouldn't use private WAN links - they should transmit all their packets on public internet (and no VPNs!). Nor should they use encryption - that's just another barrier between the people and the information.
Come on, we're not talking about hiding stuff that's not already (theoretically) hidden. We're talking about basic security. I'd be shot if I seriously proposed to my employer any of those tongue-in-cheek items in my first paragraph - and we're a private firm. You don't let just anybody look at you're business. "But we're the people," you cry. "We have a right!" So you do. Consider the privacy implications of unsecured governmental communications. The feds have HUGE amounts of information about the citizenry, and I think that info should be secured from the likes of J. Random Cracker. Whether or not the government should have all that info is a question for another day, but surely they should secure what they have.
If you want to know what the government knows, use FOIA. Consider it a public interface; don't worry about the implementation details. Use your vote to eliminate bad implementors. encourage investigative journalism. Demand accountability in recordskeeping - make Ollie North a traitor. But for heaven's sake, don't be so pigheaded as to think that we should take phones out of government offices because ureaucrats use them to have point-to-point, uneavesdropped conversations.
P.S. I'll bet some proactive GS IT types are using current events to finally get some long-needed network security into place.
I don't know if "critically-important government agencies like the Department of Agriculture" was meant to sound sarcastic, but I don't seem to be the only one who read it that way, judging from a couple of comments here. I'd just like to point out that the Ag Dept does an awful lot of good. Aside from various projects that help keep rural America afloat, the Agriculture Department also runs the Forest Service, protects open space, keeps ag-related disease out of this country, provides low-cost foods for school lunches, and does all sorts of other nifty behind-the-scenes market-oriented stuff to help ensure that when you go to the store, the stuff you need is always there. And affordable. If the Ag Dept vanished, you'd notice.
Its composed of people like you and I, not evil robots that try to strip us of everything we own in some gigantic conspiracy to "ruuuule the wooooorld"
A few questions:
How many times, in the last century alone, has a nation killed tens of thousands of it's own people in a consolidation of government power? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? The fact that you probably need to research an accurate answer to the first two, and that the answer to #3 is not "zero", should worry you just a little.
Given the above answers, do statements like: "Some civil servants might not care about my privacy as much as they should" really seem that outlandish?
If the government were as truly evil as you think they are, they would have already killed you, or would have prevented you from being born in the first place, let alone let you (gasp) speak openly in public!
Oh, of course! They're not committing genocide yet, so obviously everything is hunky-dory in the binary "perfect good" vs. "infinite evil" world you live in. Sorry if we're confusing you by suggesting the existance of gray...
This is exactly how intelink (the classified version of in the internet) works dude. It is secure, guess why, because it ain't connected to the internet. You don't get access to it unless you need to have it. Sure you can tap the cable somewhere or steal sensitive info from work and post it on Yahoo. But assuming your a hacker not a traitor, good luck breaking in. I'm sure it's possible, though in the years I worked at NSA/DoD I never heard of someone hacking it.
You want to use the internet from your desk? Tough. You sign up, get permission and walk to a room where unclassfied internet exists. You want the latest device driver? You submit a request, it's downloaded a day or so later, virus scanned, logged in a file, and given to you on a floppy or internal ftp site. Last year I posted a length article on slashdot about pros and cons of working for the classified government. No net access was a big minus. Every friday, someone was nice enough to import Linux weekly news in it's entirety and post it. That's how I got my linux news at work. Note that NSA is working with VMware on a solution to provide internet access and classified access on the same desktop; not sure it will ever happen. Anyway, just some insight from someone who has been there and done that.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
you're absolutely correct. Military networks are meant to be used for military purposes, not random people from congress snooping on activities so that they can tell the press stuff. In my example, I used security clearances to illustrate my point using simplified terms outsiders (non-military/govt people) would understand more easily.
Some of what I said is proably a tad innacurate, but I think the point of having multiple separated networks is made.
I should probably say something about Bush's irateness over press leaks. I'm a former DoD contractor with a clearance. (Contract ended Sept 20, thank god!) We got an email the day after the attacks saying that if the media approaches you, direct them to the Office of Public & Media Affairs and answer all questions 'no comment'. People in Congress proabably also got similar emails/memos.
I should note that the 'anonymous sources' the media uses are commiting espionage. Yes, espionage. IANAL, but my interpretation of espinage laws indicate that any disclosure of classified info, regardless of who the info is being disclosed. (that's also the drift I got during my exit briefing form the DoD)
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Also it's well known that gov't computer security is fairly pathetic, this would be a nice first step towards remedying that problem. Just have seperate networks with an airgap between this network and the internet, and the gov't would be shielded from any number of plausible attacks.
After all, if you show me a Network Admin who can't hack a .gov/.mil site, I'l show you an incompetant Network Admin.
"All GOVNET components and links must be located in the U.S. or Canada."
Is Canada part of our Government now?