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Homeland Security Adds Cybersecurity Position
Matimus writes "Information Week has a story about the new Cybersecurity position in the Department of Homeland Security. They have stated IT management is one of their six major concerns." From the article: "Homeland Security's decision to create an assistant secretary for cybersecurity and telecommunications is expected to be well received by Congress and IT advocates calling for better use of technology in securing the country's physical and virtual borders. In May, the House of Representatives passed a $34 billion budget for Homeland Security that called for elevating the nation's head cybersecurity official to assistant secretary status."
Securing the virtual border ?
I'm not sure about you, but that smells like they are planning to firewall USA ?
Whats next ? Content filtering ?
morcego
I agree with your assessment, but I think it might not have always been this way. I think there was a short period of time when the founding fathers of the US moved from being revolutionaries to government officials that they were able to get actual work done. (Such as Hamilton's construction of the Treasury Department or Jefferson's State Department). I know the lack of partisan bickering didn't last long and modern political BS soon found its way, but I'd at least like to think there were at least a few years of real work being done by the govt.
This person will be either a Gartner-reading FUD-gobbler, or some clueless government hack. Either way, real security will not be important. Appearances will be.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Another puppet official to tell us we need the death penalty for hackers?
So, when a political party you like better happens to hold office, are the people they appoint to federal positions "puppets" too? Is anyone that's hired to do a particular job, including following the policy guidance of the people that hired them, a puppet?
Have you ever had a job? Or better: have you ever hired anyone? If you did hire someone, would you only respect them if they did something other than what you asked them to do? See, because then they wouldn't be a puppet, right?
I wonder how much of the money will go towards research to blow "terrorists" computers up
Actually, that's more DOD's job. If a hostile network or group of people started using our networks to cause more damage than is already being done, you can bet that we can and should at the very least trash the networks they're using. Just like they'd do to us. When you consider that strictly "private sector" Russian mobsters can extort untold thousands of dollars from companies by coordinating massive DDoS attacks, imagine what, say, the government of China might try if they got pissy over Taiwan. We absolutely need people focusing on how to unplug them as needed. At the very least.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
They can't even keep their own web site running!
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
If you did hire someone, would you only respect them if they did something other than what you asked them to do? See, because then they wouldn't be a puppet, right
Depends on presentation. If said person showed me I was doing something wrong, and offered a better way I'd be happy. Their job is more efficient, mine is easier... works great. The difference is in agenda. The current agenda of the government often seems contrary to the needs or well-being of its citizens, but the purpose of the government is to meet the needs of said citizens. Thus, when government creates a position which under the mystique works against the citizens, it is working against the purposet of the position.
It is the fact that the government itself is corrupt to the point where they directly oppose the purpose of their own creation that puppets origate.
Hey, these are my grandchildren. They were raised by one of my children who was raised by me and who, therefore, has been greatly exposed to my attitude towards many of those complex social and technological issues the net gives us. I doubt they'll ask me such a stupid question at all.
Or so I hope, my children are both still quite young, and after all they're unique individuals anyway, so anything might happen. Maybe they even don't develop any interest for computers, and I sure won't be pressing them into it for we all know how shitty working with computers is most of the time in the Real World(TM) for most of the people.
But I digress. Back in the old days in CompuServe, there was a time when they were checking ID and not allowing people to 'join' without. Only real names were allowed and set by CIS according to your ID. That was actually a Good Thing. I talked to Al Gore and can say for sure that it was him. That was back in 1994. Heck, I even talked to Douglas Adams and can be sure it was really him. (His style was very characteristic anyways, which was great fun.) If someone stalked or harassed you, you'd simply submit his message or mail to the CIS sysops and they'd take care of it, even banning people for continued harassing. They usually couldn't rejoin CIS without a change of ID (see above).
Those were Great Times. There was a very friendly atmosphere. There was no spam. I say it again so that it can sink into your conscious mind. There. Was. No. Spam. I remember years of email without a single spam. I remember finding the first one really odd (it was the notorious Svetlana stuff, Russian brides for sale) and thinking that this is so pointless that it won't be successful and dying out. The problem was only beginning when they opened their system to the Internet in around 1995. The restrictive access was a good thing.
So actually, to finally get back on topic, things aren't that easy. "Freedom and chaos" aren't inherently good, it's a *lot* more complex. Accountability would solve almost all of the problems we have today. Think about spam. Think about DDoS. Think about the social consequences. Hell, even think of arbritary things like ecommerce, it would be secure for both sides. The back side, of course, stays the surveillance scenario everyone of us fears. I am German. I for sure don't want to live in a country ruled by all-knowing totalitarists, my grandparents told me enough about it.
Which closes the circle. I really need recovery. *goes off to de.alt.sysadmin.recovery*
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
LOL. Dubya is way too compassionate for his conservative base. Ask them sometime (without coming across as confrontational.)
And he certainly did unite the two parties after Sept 11th. He had them all singing the same tune on Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. -- right up until the elections loomed. Then the Democrats couldn't bottle up their partisan angst anymore.
Quoting a blatent propagandist like M. Moore doesn't make a good case, by the way.