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.

Comments

Sure...

[dghcasp]

GOVNET would be for critically-important government agencies like the Department of Agriculture to communicate.

and get spammed with MAKE WHEAT FAST!

This is bad why?

[chinton]

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?

F. Lee Ermey, "Well...No Sh!t..."

[Dolly_Llama]

Apparently, the concept is to build a decentralized network so that government officials, academicians, and others can communicate with one another via a technology called "electronic mail." Planned but not yet implemented is a feature whereby entire files can be sent via this "Inter-network." Proponents of the decentralized model tout that communications could be routed around damage in such a network, even perhaps, a nuclear attack!

In business news, Cisco Systems stock [CSCO] rose 60% today.

Thank god for USA Today: America's Pravda

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of

[JoeShmoe]

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