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Deliberation of "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace"
An anonymous reader writes "Per the Federal Register the National Infastructure Advisory Council will have a public meeting (telephonically) from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm EST on 1/8/2003 to deliberate on the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. 'Written comments may be submitted at any time before or after the meeting.' Details can be found in text format or in PDF."
So I asked myself, how can centerlizing the internet prevent terrorists from taking out large chunks of the system? Answer: It can't, and in fact makes it easier to do so. But it does make intercepting e-mail much easier.... Ahh. That's the REAL answer.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Banks run on private networks like SWIFT, not on the internet. Your personal account might have some kind of web access, but not the intra-bank network.
The same goes for any large enterprise that gives a damn about their security and reliability. The internet is unreliable, insecure, and can never be anything but by the very nature of it's design. (Note: fault resilience such as rerouting around failed nodes is not the same thing as fault tolerant -- the segments behind the failed node are still unreachable.)
When you say they "aren't trying to control cyberspace", I just have these visions of the founding fathers of the US inscribing "the right to bear arms" with the intent of allowing the country to defend itself, and the modern twisting of those words to justify possession and use of assault weapons and handguns far beyond the defense of a nation.
I look at the "temporary" income taxes that were to pay for war costs, which are still in place and increasing.
I look at the insanity of a "War on Drugs" that destroys the careers of hundreds of thousands of people for smoking a joint, while the death toll on the highways and roads due to "legal" drunk drivers continues.
I look at Hollings & co. selling out to the entertainment industry, even though it damages an IT industry worth many times that amount to the nation.
Trust them? Sure, I trust them. I trust them to steal my income, invade my privacy, interfere with my life, and ignore our objections to what is rapidly becoming a police state.
Thank God I'm getting out of this screwed up country in a few days. Maybe in a few years after the American people have revolted against the insanity it will be safe to come back with the expectation of being allowed to live without excess interference from a corporate-run government.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The US was founded on the recognition that all governments tend, sooner or later, to oppress their citizens. Thus, the only government which wouldn't be oppressive is one that is of, by, and for its citizens ("the people").
We're at a pretty critical crossroads now, where the rights of large organizations (corporate and governmental) are at a precarious balance with the rights of individual citizens. In particular, democracy coming into direct conflict with safety, and, in other arenas (such as intellectual property issues [eg, RIAA, MPAA]), clashing directly with capitalism.
If the government feels that the best way to ensure safety is to prevent the unfettered, unmonitered flow of individuals, then one has to ask how true democracy can really be practiced.
The "war on terrorism" threatens to turn us from a nation-of-rules to a nation-of-men. Once we entrust *any* group of people to regulate us with minimal checks and balances, then any sense of democracy will is doomed. I can't think of a better environment for abuse then monitoring virtually all electronic communications between private citizens.
Imperfect security is the price we pay for our democratic ideals. This is a price I think most of us are willing to pay for our freedom.