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U.S. Department of Interior Ordered Offline
The whole of the U.S. Department of Interior has been forced off of the internet as a result of a court case Cobell v. Babbit. This was the result of compromises with the Microsoft Windows servers. A judge decided to take the whole of the organization down. Should this judge have this much power? Info here on the
indian trust web site. This includes the BLM, USGS and the Park Service. Staggering, really. CD: Hold off on the blaming of MS, it's still not clear.
Well at least there is one competent judge in the US. Personally this decision makes alot of sense, as in previously posted... if you can't keep confidential information confidential then you shouldn't have the information. All and all a good decision. I wonder how this affects Microsoft? Maybe now their get their collectively large asses moving and fix those damn security issues before each major release so we don't have to go updating to Microsoft Windows Service Pack 143.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Of course the judge should have this much power.. it's what we called a "check" in civics class. The executive branch is sucking, and nobody could make it stop sucking if the judicial branch had no power.
It may seem a bit extreme to make the ruling so pervasive, but then again that may be the only way to get those brain-dead govt managers to create a real system (like perhaps without MS software to start).
I agree. Think of it like a bank.
If a bank was FDIC insured, and their physical security was absolutely horrible, then the government would yank the insurance and effectively shut the bank down. Fortunately for the banks, the government isn't competent enough to rate their Internet security as they are the physical and fiscal security.
If no one ever lays the hammer down on something like this, people will never start to equate online security with the physical security they take for granted. And much better for the government to start policing itself before it makes more noises about policing the rest of us.
Yes, absolutely, a Federal Judge should have this much power. It's one of the best checks against the possibility of tyranny.
Since the Executive and Legislative branches of government routinely ignore the U.S. Constitution, it is extremely important that we can count on the check of the Judiciary.
Wikia
"In a sweeping action with far-reaching but unclear ramifications, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth granted the emergency request, which was brought on behalf of 300,000 American Indians whose assets are housed on a computer infrastructure so easily penetrable that a court investigator and his team of security experts were able to break in and repeatedly access, modify and even create trust data -- all without raising a response from the government."
/. wants to see liability extended to the same absurd levels of product and contingent liability that have been demonstrated in the McDonalds and other Python-esque liability cases, BUT...
it's actually well past time for the courts to hold organizations whose systems are busted by 12 year old scriddies running "canned scripts" from Toolz sites
how would you feel if this were your families' or your companie's sensitive and/or private information??? Information about your 502 or your daughter's rape, or your son's juvenille arrest for possessing underage TeleTubbie Pr0n?
"Coupled with the judge's action were criticisms from members of Congress about the security failures. "The GAO told us five years ago that the fund was in shambles," said Rep. Jim Hansen (R-Utah,) chairman of the House Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over Indian affairs. "Now we learn that a computer security system deployed in 1999 is virtually worthless," he said."
i don't think anyone on
...isn't it about time the direct creators, distributors and managers of dangerously insecure computer systems have at least SOME small legal responsible (and limited accompanying monetary liability)????
If the facts on the Indian Trust website ARE true, DOI (and Congress) have long been aware of the problems and have been ducking the bullet on fixing it...if this were my money/info, I'd sure be upset...
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
The site www.doi.gov is running Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) on Solaris.
The site www.blm.gov is running Apache/1.3.22 (Unix) PHP/4.0.6 on unknown.
The site www.nps.gov is running Netscape-Enterprise/4.1 on Solaris.
Oh, and nps is still up....
One good whore deserves another, I suppose.
The power of judicial review is not "ignoring the law". Judicial review is the power to say that a given law violated the terms of another, "higher" law -- in the US, that's the Constitution. A judge cannot (or at least should not) choose to ignore a law on the basis of "I just don't like it".
The power the judge is exercising in this case, is the ability for a judicial or quasi-judicial authority (ie: a congressional committee) to hold someone in contempt. When one violates the order of a judge in a given situation -- that is, a case is brought before him/her, and in the course of that proceeding orders a certain thing to be done, or not be done -- and that order is violated, they can be held until such time as they satisfy the judge that they will comply, or until suitably punished. Yes, the power of holding someone in contempt is broad, with only the barest hint of restraint (many jurisdictions only allow someone to be held on contempt for a year or less).
This says nothing of the laws themselves -- where one is charged, tried, and formally sentenced to a given term in accordance with the law violated.