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Network Webcurity Wishlist?
breillysf asks: "I am a California-based network security attorney who has been asked by a senior US Senator to compile a list of the most important legal concerns facing network security administrators. He has a good feel for the government security issues (and lack there of), but he is concerned about what is going on in the front lines in the private sector. I thought the Slashdot crowd would have the best feel on the pulse of the current situation. Specifically, if you could ask Congress for help in the area of network and information security, what would you ask for? Or would you tell them to get out of the way?"
"For example, I tried to push for tax incentives for upgrades in network security measures, but the Senator replied that is dead in the water because we are now spending into a deficit. He would rather see insurance companies reward firms with lower premiums for enhanced security. But there are International legal issues, compliance issues, privacy complications, potential negligence liability exposure, lack of federal incident response, FOIA and anti-trust issues with info sharing, conflicting state and federal cybercrime and privacy laws, USA Patriot Act concerns, etc."
To borrow a phrase; if you outlaw nmap, only outlaws will have nmap.
-Peter
How about holding various companies whose products are exploited the most (re: MS) liable for their lack of security?
- Never ever ever use the so-called-word "Webcurity" again.
...- Err
... - Thats it.
(apologies to Private Eye)Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The number-one item on my wishlist would be for the government to keep completely out of network security issues -- the government should ensure security on its own networks, of course, but they shouldn't be concerned about anything else.
There's already enough laws to deal with DOS attacks and such -- more laws just means more expense for those who have to deal with them.
Twoflower
--
Twoflower
Well, for starters, don't let Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor work as a security advisor for the White House.
This is a great chance to get our concerns as a community out into the public sector.
Consider this: ONE person/organization has EVERYONE'S personal and financial data online. This goes against all design architectures in both security AND engineering. A single point of failure. Imagine one bank in real life, with Barney Fife guarding it. Would you put your life savings there?
With more and more commerce occurring on the internet, the more important it is that there is some scheme to protect this important market. I am particularly concerned with one private company holding the public trust in their hands -- I am also very concerned about the government, for that matter, also holding this information!
"Coax" all carriers and providers to do egress filtering at the edges of their networks. This should help significantly in reducing DDoS attacks and should help make malicious network activity easier to trace.
the more crypto the better. and don't try to legislate backdoors into it or anything.
people need to reliaze that crypto is available to anyone with the ability to use it...it needs help in getting the average joe to use it.
most people won't use PGP or something b/c it is too complicated. crypto needs to be built into office and internet apps from the ground up. strong crypto. stuff that can't be broken.
people need to feel secure about these things. i think the govt has a lot to offer in promoting pki and such to get this in the hands of everyone.
privacy is important. the govt needs to make a proactive effort to show that they believe in personal privacy and are willing to help make it happen online.
First, stay out of the way. don't meddle in things that you know nothing about. Don't place restrictions on security meassures, a la encryption export. Don't mandate government backdoors and don't permit the likes of Carnivore and Magic Lantern.
Second, concentrate on the governments own cyber security problems. Clean up your own house before you start trampling over mine.
If the government would require on all their networks IPv6 and IPSEC, that would go along way toward IPv6 and IPSEC being accepted and would improve network security. Nothing else needs to be done.
The most important and significant problem is not putting the proper resources into getting that security. Upper level management are not technically minded folk, and they don't view computers and true tools. They don't understand the costs when you try to explain it to them. "I'd like to get around $200k so that I can physically seperate out infastructure and give us added security."
Management: "I'll give you 2 un-trained contractors, a spool of thread, and a tin can."
They just don't understand, or appreciate what computers provide, but yet they get irate when something happens. Therefor the largest hurdle to overcome is getting the senior people up to snuff, or willing to to dish out the resources for what needs to be done above and beyond a simply reactionary level. To them, pro-active computer security is like flushing money down the toilet.
A professor at the University of Massachusetts named Brian Levine pointed this out and I wholeheartedly agree:
It should be regulated that every network only allow their alotted IP to leave their network -- aka egress filtering.
For example (using unassigned addresses purely for example), if you have a 192.168.5.0/24 subnet, you should not allow 10.10.5.0/24 addresses to leave it -- aka ONLY allow 192.168.5.0/24 addresses to leave it .
If everyone did this it would solve most of the IP spoofing problems and add a lot of accountability without infringing on people's privacy. Massive DoS attacks could be traced and stopped.
doesnt' mean they're the least secure.
Exploits are still made against products that Microsoft secured over a year ago. And indeed, microsoft gets exploited the most because they are used by the vast majority of non-technical users. Can you imagine what would happen if 90% of the computer-owning people used linux? Every single hole in the OS would not only be explioted, but you could count on it being a LOT less likely that the average-joe user would *ever* update his software to fix the hole
One of these employees got bored with his coding tasks and, with no previous exposure to a broadband Internet connection, apparently decided to become a script kiddie on company time. From all outward appearances, he got pretty good at it, but one day it caught up with him: U.S. Marshals came into my office and served me with a court order that asked for many, many pieces of information that would tell them who had been cracking systems from our corporate network.
I had no problem turning this information over, as the other choice was to go to jail and let the hacker go free. However, I was appalled with the way the marshals treated me: they knew that I was just the sysadmin, not the perpetrator, but they still treated me like a criminal. When I told them that our NAT setup doesn't keep logs of every single outgoing connection from our network (as had been requested in the court order) they got really pissed off and started threatening me. At that point I told them that I was not going to do anything for them without talking to counsel, and they backed off.
So, the moral of the story here is that law enforcement needs to show more respect for sysadmins, and learn the difference between a network admin and a criminal on the admin's network. Treating everybody as though they are all guilty will only build resentment and get in the way of getting their precious case solved.
df
I am thinking specifically of Microsoft, and the Microsoft Outlook Email Viruses, but this could certainly apply to plenty of other companies.
If companies are merely licensing the use of the software to us (and we do not own it), and charging the big bucks, shouldn't they be responsible and/or liable for the consequences - damages from using it? or is this a matter of they get all of the benefits, and we get all of the problems?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Congress doesn't regulate whether individuals or corporations lock their doors, install security alarms, or any of a plethora of physical security measures. Then, why would I want them to step into the fray and regulate security responses and policies in cyberspace?
To begin with, the government doesn't move fast. Given that time scales associated with the IT was becoming smaller and smaller, the iterrations would go through many cycles before Congress knows what hit them. Attempting to regulate the arena would get in the way.
Secondly, Congress obfuscates rather than clarrifies. Look at the DMCA - which causes more problems for the industry than it solves. It's great for the conventional copyright holder but has the effect of stiffling digital advances. Congress moving to mandate information security policies or measures would be the same thing - the paradym they are working under doesn't apply well to this technology or the time scales under which it operates.
Let the industry that's used to the pace of things set the policies. Congress is better suited to time scales where change occurs in years, not days.
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
There's an ongoing trend to criminalize the tools and speech used to conduct security research; This is the single most frustrating aspect of the government's involvement in network security. Lists like bugtraq and tools like nessus and nmap are absolutely vital to the health of a network-connected system. Some suggested legislation would make all security discussions criminal, some would allow such work to only be conducted by approved organizations; Both would shatter the ability of the individual administrator to effectively secure his systems. If I could make one and only one request it would be to specifically disallow legislation that attempts to let companies involved with the internet take the security ball to their private court and bounce it around, leaving individual system administrators with no tools and no forums in which to discuss their own defences. In short: keep public, individual security research legal.
Thanks, and good luck.
Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.
Federalize computer security. Make network admins another part of the executive branch, like the FBI, NSA, or ATF. Assign agents to every buisness with an internet connection (more significant the connection, more agents). Give them the authority to break down the doors of the script kiddie attempting to zombie user's workstations and point a gun at their head.
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
This brings up an interesting point, though: should Congress make it illegal for companies to give up your personal information to law enforcement without your consent (or a court order)?
-sting3r
Thanks, but no thanks. I'd much rather stick to securing my boxes with the understanding that it's a hostile net out there than have my government tell me the One True Way to do so. Passing laws which only apply to less than 5% of the world's population will not make the net secure, and feel good legislation is something I can do without.
What to do? No, don't ban the business practice. Just ensure responsibility.
We have a company (not just MS, but anyone) that holds user data (passwords, credit card info, whatever) accessible online (the proof of the pudding is in the eating.. if some cracker is able to access it, then it was accessible). Make that company liable for any real or consequential damages to users due to leakage of that data. Damages including value of time lost in changing passwords, dealing with credit card companies, whatever. Liable regardless of whatever EUL or click-thru smokescreens disclaiming liability they may have.
Don't mandate *how* they should stay secure. Just make it clear that if they blow it, it's going to be very very expensive.
It is current practice of some US states to sell driver's license pictures and other personal data from their database to private firms, for various reasons. This practice should be illegal, or at the very least carefully monitored at the federal level.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
1: Get out of our way WRT encryption and other secure technologies. We're not terrorists, we just want to keep our personal information secure. Installing "back doors" and other methods may, on the surface, seem like a good idea for national security, but in reality hackers can enter through those as easily as the government.
2: Hold vendors responsible for security holes in their products. Currently, the EULAs prevent someone harmed by a security flaw from seeking liability, even if that security flaw was deliberately programmed into the software as a "feature."
3: Recognize the role of antivirus firms such as McAfee and Symantec in protecting users. They should be unrestricted in their efforts to make and sell software that can protect computer users from harmful files, regardless of the source.
4: Realize that the best way to catch criminals and terrorists is through the use of human intelligence, which history has proven to be much more effective than randomly reading private EMails. Also, human intelligence doesn't involve threatening the liberty of normal, law-abiding Americans like many of the other proposed methods do.
5: This is probably the most important one: Remember the words of Ben Franklin when he said, "They that would give up Essential Liberty in order to obtain Temporary Safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." I would also add that, in these cases, you usually don't get the safety you're seeking in the first place.
Encourage the Senator to remain aware that legislation about the Internet doesn't have crisp borders. Bits don't change color when they cross national boundaries.
When you do that, you might get him to understand that such laws are not easy to enforce and will certainly involve a lot of jurisdictional disputes.
And you might encourage him to realize that it is the lowest common denominator of behavior on the Internet that represents the cutting edge of security needs.
In other words, passing legislation against US Internet users is tantamount to taking their guns away, when they can at any minute be involved in a virtual gun-fight with, for example, Chinese or Indian crackers who have no such laws hampering them.
In no particular order:
1) The Federal government should encourage, not discourage, the use of encryption, without key escrow or back doors, by not regulating encryption in any way. (The government should also invest heavily in the appropriate technology to break encryption when it needs to do so.) Without the fear of government intervention, application designers will be encouraged to add encryption to email and other software as a business advantage to themselves, thus allowing my business to communicate more securely with ease.
2) The Federal government should encourage open source and open standards by requiring the use of open source software and open standards on all government systems (except possibly military/intelligence systems). This will get more eyes on the code, thus reducing vulnerabilities and fixing them faster, and will ensure that people are unable to take advantage of unpublic holes in uncheckable software.
3) The Federal government should generally *not* regulate the internet, as this can introduce holes that cannot be fixed because of regulatory requirements. In particular, the government should not use either legislation or funding to control the use of the internet by libraries, schools and other non-Federal government institutions, or by private individuals and organizations. There are a few exceptions I would be OK with:
a) requiring "edge filtering" so that networks would not support denial of service attacks;
b) allowing wire fraud charges against people/organizations who deliberately send email without proper and valid headers (or with forged headers), so as to obscure their identity while sending unsolicited commercial email and/or perpetuating scams (note that this should be allowed for the purpose of anonymously propagating a political opinion, for example, just not for commercial use);
c) requiring organizations who control internet naming or numbering to have public accountability, as these organizations were largely granted a monopoly by the US government; opening up these processes to a standards-based system where everyone can participate; or allowing anti-trust legislation against such bodies if they attempt to coercively control internet access.
4) The Federal government should designate ISPs and online communities as common carriers.
5) The Federal government should require cable and telephone companies, as part of their FCC licensing requirements, to offer the option of access to the network for paying subscribers wihtout mandatory membership in an ISP, and in particular an ISP should not be allowed to gain monopoly status by association with a government-granted monopoly such as a cable system. This would have reduced the @Home debacle, for example, to a trivial matter. The potential for AOL/Warner is even worse down the road if something is not done to guarantee choice in broadband access.
OK, I guess I got a little away from security with those last some of that.
-jeff
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Don't mandate key escrow. Key escrow will inhibit the adoption of encryption, and encryption is vital to both proper and secure authentication and to data privacy. Attempts by various parties to limit the widespread adoption of encryption might make their job easier but is not good for (internet) security. It is frequently said that if you outlaw encryption, only outlaws will use encryption - that is, making it illegal to use it will not stop criminals from actually doing so.
Re-think laws that make it possible to prosecute scientists for publishing the results of their research - i.e. the DMCA or parts of it.
Encourage the adoption of IPv6 - perhaps by allocating budget for adoption of this by government agencies (I mean carrot here, not stick).
Implementing even a few of these should deal with the national deficit, quite nicely. Some of the biggest costs in both public and priate spending are to fix serious problems, after the fact. The burdon should be shifted, as much as can realistically be done, to those responsible. A stitch in time saves nine. But, damn it, the tax payers shouldn't have to pay for someone else's failure to stitch.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Replying at random to one of the many people who say gov't always gets it wrong and the public sector is where all the smart people are. Go read the comments to the article about project failure. Notice how many of them (like, almost *all*) are about private companies are filled with moron managers who couldn't make the right decision if it sprang full from their butt.
People are people. You get idiots in the public sector. You get idiots in the private sector. Where you get people, you get idiots.
Everyone is smarter than his or her boss. That makes the lowest person in the company the smartest.
Make all government-funded development work open-sourced.
One thing that may help is if there was some independant firm that could give a qualitative and quanitative measurement of a company's security. These independant firms could review patch logs, sys admin proceedures, backup procedures, and employee training materials. They could also perform more intrusive audits, using a standard set of tools (upgraded quarterly) to attempt to infiltrate the organization. At the end, they could then give some sort of ranking, to let a company know what bases have been covered and how they rank with others in the industry.
This service is done by many security firms, but there is no real standard. All the information is propriatary, and usually secret, because a company doesn't want to publicize what holes were found. Even then, there is no real motivation to get ongoing reviews, because, if there are no visible hacker attempts, then it seems like a waste of time and money.
This might be changed by offering computer security insurance. This insurance would cover the cost of recovering after a sucessful cracking attempt, as well as any lost business. An insurance firm would evaluate the current security and ability to recover from a hacking attempt, and find a reasonable insurance rate based on the company's preparedness.
This would help in several ways. First, even though the evaluation would be between the insurance company and the insurance purchaser, the insurance rate would show up on the financial reports. Investors and reporters could compare the rate and the coverage, and make a rough determination of the fitness of the company's security measures. The rate information should be included in the financial report, since this information would help an investor decide how likely a company is to suffer financial loss due to a hacking attempt. It may require a law to get this insurance information into financial reports.
Second, it would give companies a forum to disclose successful hacks. Currently, companies keep all but the most damaging hacking attempts secret, because it makes them look bad in the eyes of investors. If there is a financial incentive to report hacking attempts (they could get some insurance money back), there may be motivation to share this critical information, and other companies may be able to secure their own systems against new methods.
Third, damage claims would be more realistic. When a cracker is caught, many companies let their imagination soar when it comes to damages, assuming fantastical scenarios like, "What if he found our most prized trade secrets, and sold them to our direct competitor, thus making us lose all the profit from that product / service?", or "What is the sum of all the salaries of everyone who ever worked on that machine?". If the company had to actually file a claim, then the insurance company would dictate the terms of that claim, what is fair game for damages and what is not. This will help put the cracker's actions into better perspective.
Fourth, once standards are formed, the government could use the standards for contractors. For instance, a contractor working with "Secret" documents may have to have a score of 90 out of 100 for the general company, and a score of 97 out of 100 for the division working with the secret data. The government may even demand scores of 100 - not unrealistic for a score based on repeatable and auditable tests.
Fifth, the insurance companies would have an incentive to discover what security measures work, and which don't. If they find that yearly training for employees to deter social engineering attacks work, then they can make that part of the standard. If randomized one-use passwords work, then it goes in. If some widely believed precaution has little effect, it can come out of the standard. In general, we'll have a better idea of what makes a secured network, and more books will be written helping small businesses meet the insurance company's demands.
Sixth, we can develop labs like UL for computer security, which can rate software, operating systems, and hardware, giving them ratings for their out-of-the-box configurations. Vendors will work harded for better ratings, and auditors will have an idea how much patching needs to be done for a particular system to be kept up-to-date. Security will actually become a selling point.
I'm not sure if there is a law that would make this happen. I'm sure you can talk to the insurance lobby, and get a rough idea why this doesn't exist yet.
Mr. Senator, there is something you can actually do for us.
It even involves you getting to pass a law, which I know is something you Senators greatly enjoy.
It is:
REPEAL THE DMCA SO WE CAN GET SOME DAMN WORK DONE.
Thanks for taking my valuable time (because I pay for your time, too) to listen.
But what would you have the government do to change it?
Simple. Inform consumers of what we pros already know. Before using passport, you must read the 24 point disclaimer on the web page:
"WARNING. ALL INFORMATION STORED IN THIS SERVICE MAY BE ACCESSIBLE BY CRIMINALS."
Call it truth in advertising or whatever, but be sure that NO ONE can call their product secure unless it is.
My biggest concern is the woeful state of computer security research in the U.S. Due to crypto restrictions in the U.S., foreign firms offering commercial cryptographic products have gained a major competitive advantage. This has translated into more R&D money for these firms. The crypto regulations were repealed. But now history is repeating itself, due to congressional meddling with Intellectual Property laws (DMCA, and it's ilk). It's had a chilling effect on security research in this country. Similarly, the Sklyarov arrest resulted in foreign security experts being very wary of even attending conferences in the U.S.
At a time when the U.S. needs to strengthen our computer security infrastructure, congress has managed to handicap the very people needed to accomplish this goal.
So, bottom line, change the laws (starting with the DMCA), before all computer security research moves offshore.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Both are considered "weapons" that can be used to "attack" others (or, in the case of crypto, facilitate attacks, although strong crypto is still considered a "weapon" by the government, right?)
Both are also tools that can (and mostly are) be used for legitimate purposes
Both suffer from attacks from their critics who can't differentiate between the inherent goodness/badness of a tool and the goodness/badness of the intent behind the use of the tool.
Both suffer from the radical polarization of viewpoints on both sides of the issue.
The only difference that I see is that we don't have a Constitutional Amendment that says "the right of the people to use BackOrifice shall not be infringed..." Perhaps that's what we need?
I know many people who are pro-"gun rights", and by making these parallels, I've started turning them into pro-"Crypto and Internet Security" people as well. After all, if they passionately believe in the right to defend themselves from the threat that may come through their front door, they will believe in making all the information available for defending from the threat that may come through their cable box!
(I might add that while examining these isues, I've come to understand and sympathise with the pro-"Gun Rights" people a bit more. I still don't agree with all their points, but at least I understand their basic beliefs.)
Decriminalize the publication of information. Throwing someone in jail because they talk about an encryption system or they reverse engineer a protocol, is stupid.
Criminals, by definition, will not obey they law. Criminalizing research and information sharing hinders only the legitimate researchers and security professionals.
If a product/services is secure, it has nothing to fear from scrutiny.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The same thing happened to the auto industry as it matured. Today we have strong warranties on cars, strong liability laws, and cars work very reliably. The auto industry kicked and screamed about regulation for decades. But in the end, they built better cars. It's time to do the same for software.
I'd suggest, as a start, that software which will open "executable content" (which can contain viruses, etc.) without the user's explicit permission for each opening make the vendor of said software liable for negligence should any harm result from said action. This liability must not be waiveable. That puts the burden on mail readers and web browsers to protect the user against incoming attacks. Don't accept any arguments that this is technically infeasible; it's not.
Don't protect private companies and individuals from anyone but the government. We can take care of ourselves.
Don't protect the government from law-abiding citizens. We're at sufficient disadvantage already.
Don't protect the privacy of convicted criminals.
Don't create laws that favour any one kind of entity over any other, except law-abiding citizens and corporations over convicted criminals.
Don't legislate exclusions of liability for security breaches. Let the civil courts decide who, if anyone, is responsible for damages due to security breaches.
Don't restrict or attempt to restrict cryptography, and strictly prohibit the three letter agencies from planting or distributing intentionally weakened or defective cryptographic tools.
Don't allow the three letter agencies to wiretap data connections without meeting constitutional requirements - it does nothing to improve security and most likely decreases it by creating additional copies of sensitive information.
Most importantly of all - *DO* build trust in the security community by passing and strictly enforcing JUST, FAIR LAWS in all matters concerning digital security, copyright law, privacy, and civil liberties. In other words, do your job as statesmen and earn the respect and trust of all the citizens you supposedly represent. Your job is MUCH easier to do when we can trust you, and sadly, your record makes that outright impossible.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Absolutely.
I work at a bank. We have bi-annual audits, and if we screw up , the FDIC and other FEDERAL government agencies can shut us down. Literally. They can take away our charter as a bank, they can fine us, etc.
I would say that leaving customer credit card information out in the open (meaning where hackers can get to it) is not only irresponsible, but also criminal. Make it a federal crime punishable by 10 years imprisonment and $100,000 fine per infraction, and then audit the hell out of anyone who accepts credit cards.
This will force companies who want to trade online to REQUIRE their software vendors to CONTRACTUALLY guarantee that their software offerrings cannot, under any circumstances, be breached by unauthorized personnel.
This is already standard practice in the banking software industry, and it's usually one of the first things we talk about when reviewing potential software.
Yes it's expensive, yes it's a pain, and yes it's required for the long-term stability of the banking industry.
As far as what congress can do now: give more money to the executive branch for cyber-crime law enforcment.
Related: For shipping companies to include 100% insurance in all shipments. Maybe that way they'll be more careful. And make it a violation of Federal law not to insured all packages 100%. Also, fine them if they don't pay the insurance settlements immediately. Like to the tune of $1,000 per violation per day late.
People in America should not have to have a law degree in order to not feel at the mercy of multi-billion dollar corporations.
These companies will complain and say that this will hurt their industry and the economy as a whole, but I say that's the opposite: If you have reliable shipments and safe payment systems, the economy will just ooze along nicely.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Paraphrasing Bruce Schneirer; We already have laws in place for stealing, copyright, etc. Just because someone is using a new technology to commit the same old crimes doesn't mean new laws are needed.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
The problem with that attitude is that, to get real security, you have to do things in a secure way everywhere. That means that everybody has to be thinking in terms of security... and not only that, but thinking in terms of things that will actually help, rather than just giving a false sense of security. That takes a certain mindset, and the only way to develop that mindset is to think about ways to break security, to see examples of how security is broken, and to see how existing security measures work, both so you can improve them and so you can avoid screwing them up.
If you restrict access to information, you end up with only two sets of people who have a clue:
-
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Security is everybody's problem, and that means everybody has to understand it. When you release information widely, you educate 100 good guys for every bad guy. When you try to keep everything secret, you hold the good guys back more than the bad guys.A small group of overworked security specialists. These people can't do it all, and, if the rest of the world is poorly informed, they won't be listened to. In addition, in an environment where information is tightly restricted, it's very difficult to recruit and educate new security specialists.
The bad guys. Being more motivated than the general population, the bad guys will get most or all of the "restricted" information through their own networks.
I'm not saying that there's never a reason to keep anything secret, but there should be a presumption in favor of openness. You should try to keep something secret only when:
It describes the details of an actual vulnerability that hasn't been fixed, and provides information useful in exploiting that vulnerability, AND
Having information about the vulnerability would not, in itself, permit people to protect themselves, AND
You're reasonably sure that large numbers of bad guys don't already know about it. In network security, large number of bad guys will definitely find out about it within a few months, if they haven't already found it independently. That means that keeping anything secret for a long time will never work.
In government, the sorts of things we need to watch out for are:
Excessive classification. It would be nice to see more legislative sunsets on classification, and more requirements for review of the decision to classify something. Patent secrecy orders are especially suspect.
Programs where government information is shared only with "trusted private sector partners". Not only is this intrinsically bad, but it encourages cronyism and corruption, and can create economic problems by raising barriers to entry in security-related industries.
Misguided weakening of "sunshine laws" like the FOIA. Because information is power even more in the Federal bureaucracy than in most places, there's an incentive for agencies to hoard it for political reasons. When all else fails, these laws often serve, not so much to free the underlying information, as to expose the illegitimate reasons it's being held secret.
The occasional calls for outright banning the release of scientific or engineering information, in the style of the idiotic Feinstein "bomb making information" law.
To me, the withholding of security risk information is a form of fraud. It is the same as rolling back the odometer on a used car. It is the same as selling Pintos with exploding gas tanks and the same as selling flammable pajamas to children. Companies must be required to release security risk information about their systems in a timely manner. They must be legally liable for damages that result from security issues between the time they discover the problem and the time they warn users of the problem. These kinds of penalties will force companies to create secure systems in the first place. And, to warn people in a timely manner so that they can take action to protect themselves. Although it is tempting I don't think the developers should be required to fix the system. But, a list of all outstanding security problems must be included in advertising and on the packaging of any system. People have to be able to make an informed decision about what systems to use. We put warning labels on beer and cigarettes, we require people to wear seat belts, we require the disclosure of the ingredients of all our food, we have lemon laws to protect us from unscrupulous car salesmen, and we have product liability laws that cover every physical thing we purchase. But, we have no equivalent legal protection from the purveyors of software snake oil.
The only way a company should be able to get out from under these penalties is to declare the product "dead", notify all customers of record that no more security support will be given for that product. Declaring the software dead should also require that the source code and/or system designs as well as any patent and copyrights to the system be released to the customers so that customers can arrange for other sources of security support for the system. At that point the company would not be allowed to sell, distribute, or accept any sort of payment including royalties and support payments for the software.
Stonewolf
The most important thing is to push for the correct approach. By that I mean whenever one talks about anything "digital" or "computer"/"internet"-related, commonsense dissapears, most people tend to look at relations as if a different balance was needed. It is not. Cyber tools are like any other tools. Companies that offer computer-related products should be accountable for damages, like any other company. Products that involve risk should stamp that clearly in the manuals. Tha most secure way to use software should be described in detail. If one promisses and sends a bill, one has to deliver, or else compensate. Things like that. Think of software as an automobile. It's so simple! That would answer many other questions.
One thing, though, *is* different: the absence of an a clear geographic location for things and people on the net. This can only be dealt with through international cooperation. I would advise your Senator not to try and push for unilateral measures, as seems to be the norm in the US with this administration, because that would make it far more difficult to iron-out differences in the future.
I no longer live in California, but I'd love to see some changes in the state.
In a nutshell, intelligently enforce the laws you have.
One. Fund a specialized law enforcement group dedicated to cybercrimes committed by individuals and organized crime gangs located physically in the state. The group should consist of state marshalls, prosecutors, lawyers, judges, and a civilian oversight committee. Recruit from computer science programs at state universities, or require experienced judges and prosecutors to attend graduate level CS programs at least part time. The oversight committee should be paid, at levels to rival good silicon valley firms, so that experienced engineers can spend a couple of years helping to guide law enforcement efforts.
The cybercrimes group should go after trade secret thieves, spammers, scammers, slammers, crammers, and others who feed on the naivete of consumers, or who interfere in the operations of companies. They should target phone companies who slam/cram consumers, arresting corporate officers on criminal charges as warranted. They should actively track down individuals and groups who send out UCE, since spam clogging my servers is the largest single cost I have as an administrator. There should be an undercover unit targeting criminal groups who dupe individuals with "guaranteed 100% opt-in 5 million email addresses CDROM". There are many confidence/scam operators in California who have no fear of prosecution, because there hasn't been a single arrest in the last decade for any hi-tech scams in the state.
The group should have a very publically advertised way of being contacted, and should give priority to administrators like myself who want to start legal proceedings against criminals inside of California. The people taking the complaint should have a thorough understanding of network issues, system management, and technology in general. That means you will have to pay them competitive salaries, which will make this the most expensive law enforcement group in the state. Don't worry about the cost, the value to california businesses and voters^Wtax pay^W^Wresidents will be worth it.
Two. Criminalize aiding and abetting identity theft. This means the state should stop selling records to marketing firms. California needs to rework its incorporation laws to dis-allow companies from compiling marketing databases for sale to others. Any corporation that compiles in depth information on individuals (putting together name, address, SS#, CDL# and photo, tax history, property records, medical info) and then sell it should have its charter revoked immediately, and criminally prosecute the directors.
I'm regularly in touch with my counterparts on the west coast of the US, and I hear their complaints on a regular basis. The FBI has dropped *ALL* cases that don't directly involve shit that happened in September. Local cops are completely incompetent to do anything more than write speeding tickets or bust kids with joints. There is no state organization to fight cybercrime. The admins spend most of their time keeping their long distance voice traffic on the best carrier when they get slammed once a month. They deal with a level of spam which equals 80% of their incoming traffic, much of it from dialups inside of California. They have to deal with employees walking out with 40 CDROMs full of locally produced code who start at a competitor the next day, who one month later have an identical product that even duplicates the bugs. Hackers at the firewall are insignificant compared to all the other criminal activity going on.
Look at the Avant! case, where a handful of engineers walked out of Cadence, and the next week started selling an identical product at half the price and made millions of dollars in profit. The only way Cadence could prosecute was to pay for training for the judge and prosecutor, pay the whole investigation costs, and it still took most of a decade for the criminal parts of the case to occur.
There are organized gangs selling spam-kits to unsuspecting idiots all over California. They take a bunch of money up front from the scammees, in promise of huge returns down the road for selling "penis enlargement" and MLM scams. Until now, these scammers have had no fear of prosecution, because there isn't a cop or judge in the state who will (or able to) apply the law.
There are arguments that most of these things should be left to civil action. The problem is that civil action costs lots of money, and the civil courts tend to ignore complex cases that don't have huge amounts of money on both sides. The PUC is incapable of dealing with crammers, and have declared that any consumer who is hurt can throw millions into a civil case and hope to win. With consumer protection at the lowest in California history, its time for the government to step back into enforcing the law.
Arguments about the internet being international are just a red herring. The laws are already on the books, some jurisdiction has to start applying them first. So what if most of the scammers leave the state? Fine, but I doubt it will happen, the drug dealers didn't all leave with tough new anti-drug laws. I'd be willing to bet very few people have enough money to start a new life in another state, spammers are lazy bastards. Kick down a few doors, prosecute some spammers and make some press about it. You might only make a small dent in spam, but I'll take anything I can get.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I was offered a better opportunity recently, which allowed me to leave a fortune 500 company where I was the engineering manager providing ISP services to thousands of end users. While in that position, I often asked myself this same question and came up with the following wish list.
There are a couple of things that the government can do to make computer networks and computing more secure.
1) Repeal the DMCA. When security problems are found in an implementation of an algorithm, this law makes it illegal to talk about the problem or to implement a solution.
2) Repeal patent law as it applies to software. Software is well protected under copyright law as a work of art. The underlying function (algorithms used) for every program out there is a subtle change to prior art. It's just that no one but large corporations have access to the courts to successfully challenge these ludicrous restriction's on sharing mathematical equations with one another.
3) Allow end users to sue companies that keep there products closed and security problems a secret.
4) After fixing the above. Get out of the way as the free market takes over and those with bad software are forced to compete or go out of business.