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Obama Stimulus Pours Millions Into Cyber Security
nandemoari writes "As his administration continues to work on a stimulus plan that can save America's economy, Obama's latest course of action will see millions of dollars being allocated to heighten cyber security. The move will assist government officials in preventing future attacks on the United States.
The President recently addressed his 2010 budget, outlining funding plans that will grant the Department of Homeland Security $355 million to secure the nation's most essential computer systems.
The money will be spent on both government and private groups, with much of the funding going to the National Cyber Security Division and the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative programs."
"The money will be spent on both government and private groups, with much of the funding going to the National Cyber Security Division and the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative programs."
In other words, millions of your tax dollars will be spent paying glorified security guards to sit on P2p networks all day looking for copyright infringers and kiddy porn. As if the FBI needed any competition. What, did you think they were actually saving America from terrorists?
...announces the Hope'N'Change Operating System. "Only 30% chance of crashing!"
The Army reading list
How about stimulating jobs that actually produce something that others might want? Oh wait, we don't do that anymore so the best we can do is deficit spend and divy out the money to a bunch of service industries. Might as well just allocate $500 million for the waitresses and valets parking stimulus.
I'm curious to know what critical cyber security projects or activities are "shovel ready" and awaiting funding...
Obama's campaign was approached in the fall of 2008 by the NSA, to let him and Axelrod know that either the Chinese or the Russians hacked his campaign systems.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5105027.ece
So, he knows what he's up against. If you run any sort of port knocker or ssh logging at a target IP range, you know that near round the clock brute forcing is going on by Chinese networks. They now are distributing the problem into botnets to prevent being blackholed, but they continue at it.
Obama has Janet Napolitano to run this group. They will work with US-CERT, but their mandate should be defense, not offense. They could start by approaching the US Tier-1 providers and saying, in essence, we want to use tools from companies like Arbor Networks and others that track botnets to isolate better signatures and reject them at the national perimeter, sort of an IDP at the edge of major networks.
The NSA probably has access to all domestic US websites encryption keys, at least the ones that come from Verisign. So, inspect all encrypted traffic headed back to Chinese networks, on any port. If you can't decrypt it, consider it hostile. Shunt it.
I may get modded down as flamebait, probably by Chinese slashdot readers - but the fact is, we are at war with the Chinese.
No-one's mentioned the Chinese governments vast expenditure on active (read - aggressive) cybersecurity - is it not PC anymore to say this?
I'm in London UK & all for your US nerds defending our cyber frontiers 'cos we certainly can't! BO rocks!
Nico M, London, GB.
If it creates a bunch of jobs, then it's good. if it's just throwing money at the problem, then it's bad. The spending bill should be separate from the stimulus bill, and that's what the Republicans have been griping about. There's a lot of money going to programs that need the money, but should not be on the stimulus plan.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
As an AC no one will ever see this comment, but I have to say it anyway.
The summary: "As his administration continues to work on an stimulus plan that can save America's economy.." makes it sound as if this is an accepted postulate, but nothing could be further from the truth. Many economists (and others) have serious doubts that such a stimulus package can "save" anything. And while economics is anything but intuitive, one does wonder how borrowing a trillion or so dollars -- at interest -- will work towards putting the economy "back on track."
The money will go to $5.00/hr bidders on RentACoder. There's no incentive in this bill to keep the money in the US
The government is a very inefficient way to create jobs and most jobs it creates are temporary at best. At worst they can create an artifical job market that when the projects are completed, leads to higher unemployment as people are now trained for jobs that no longer exist.
Buying your way out of a recession, as many, if not most, ecomomist have come forward and said, at best leads to a temporary bump but will more than likely lead to an extended downturn in the economy. Spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave is no way to stimulate the economy; it's just a way to ensure a huge debt load.
That's not to say the government shouldn't play a huge role in the recovery, but they should be background players, creating oppourtunities for small businesses to grow (lower taxes on small/independant business, job grants, etc...).
And as for Keynesian economic theory. It was Keynes himself who suggested that Hoover's tax increases (much the same as Obama's proposed corporate and income tax increase) actually signifigantly lengthened the depression.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Well your a step ahead of me. I'm still waiting to meet myself.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
For example: "stimulus plan that can save America's economy"
"can"? That remains to be seen, and many say it will not. Try being less of a cheerleader and tell the truth. "may save" is a better selection, and much closer to the truth, given several hundred prominent economists (and the CBO) have said this "stimulus" may end up hurting the economy due to the wasteful "political repayment" spending and huge debt load it contains.
Per the CBO a recovery, albeit slow, is predicted for later this year even were no "stimulus" package passed.
Go read up on the Nixon-Ford-Carter economy that used similar big-government Keynesian methods to stimulate the economy, and ended up producing "stagflation", high interest rates, high unemployment and high inflation (the latter two both in double digits).
Then go read Hazlitt and Hayek for why this Keynesian stuff doesn't work as intended.
In engineering terms, most learned this lesson in statics and dynamics class: You cannot push a rope.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
That's not "cyber"security at all! Cybersecurity would be pushing for signed DNS architecture, IPv6, and a DDoS mitigation infrastructure. Sonar and radar systems are physical security, not cyber security.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Why DHS? Talk about throwing money into a trash disposal.
Why not NSA/CSS? They are already tasked with this and have budget. Plus they have produced viable useful solutions, SE-Linux for example. And they have competence, unlike the DHS, who seem more concerned with political correctness than securing the nation and the borders.
This smells of political back-scratching, not a solution to a problem.
Secondly how is this supposed to stimulate demand in the economy? Remember, that was the purpose of the huge debt load we just got saddled with.
Watch for crony-contracts, and the money to not produce anything other than rich politically connected friends.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
Bush did this to the Coast Guard. He gave DHS the money, shorted their budget, and then DHS made them an offer they can't refuse. I'll be interested to see if the NSA gets fully funded.
If not, DHS will task the NSA, eventually. That's where all the brains are. If that's what's happening, this is Big Brother coming, fellas. Obama's starting to make me nervous, by supporting this monocultured, centralized structure. I want DHS disbanded and dismantled.
But then again, Tolkien warned us what power does. As Franklin said, "I have given you a Republic if you can keep it." We will have the government we want if we don't "keep it."
Politics matters.
I don't see why anybody with a network connection isn't running some sort of intrusion detection/prevention system whether it be hosted based or network based....this should especially include the government's systems as well. Snort is now included in quite a few of the specialized security distros. In fact I know of at least two distros that are specifically designed for IDS/IPS only and can be up and monitoring traffic in less than 30 minutes.
EasyIDS: http://sourceforge.net/projects/easyids/
Strataguard from Stillsecure: http://www.stillsecure.com/strataguard/
*Disclaimer: Yes I am a developer for EasyIDS but it doesn't change the fact that people should still have an IDS/IPS in place.
But then again, Tolkien warned us what power does.
Enlighten us. How did Tolkien warn us about power?
I think a fitting quote, from John Dalberg, Baron of Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Well, thanks, BadAnalogyGuy, for demonstrating exactly what's wrong with mainstream macroeconomic thought these days.
In case anyone didn't understand all that, he's referring to the infamous "GDP equation" that "gross domestic product", a poor attempt at capturing the total value of goods and services produced in an economy each year, is equal to:
Consumption (C) + Investment (I) + Government purchases (G) + net imports (X - M)
I don't know what he's using to mean Y, but I think he's referring to the rewrite of the equation that puts it as:
C + I + X - M - Y = GDP - (G + B)
where Y is net private savings and B is net government borrowing. That's how they derive the misleading identity that "net private savings equals government borrowing".
I used to see GDP as "imperfect, but a good appoximation of economic health, once you understand its limitations". Now I see mainstream macroeconomics taking its imperfections and amplifying them to the point of bad policy. They're so concerned about getting government-recorded spending to show up that they completely ignore whether that spending is actually producing anything of value. If people wisely move, in some area, to a more efficient "bartering of services", such as a babysitting co-op, that shows up as a sharp drop in consumption and thus GDP, yet has made everyone involved much better off. Add up imperfections like these, and you get a bunch of economics advocating the zombification of the economy by propping up obsolete businesses and business models, forever delaying meaningful recovery.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
This smells of political back-scratching, not a solution to a problem.
That smell...that's the smell of shit. And napalm burning. Oh dear...is our country on fire? I say...we better go smother it with these exceedingly flammable dollars!
so obama did in 30 days what it took dubya three years to do and we're still hearing more about what michelle is wearing on any particular day than where the stimulus money is going. it's going to be a fun next 10 years or more...
Took W a little more than 3 years to blow $2x10^12. He got started with eroding civil liberties about a year in, though.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Contrary to popular opinion, "creating Jobs" is not always good and is not always entirely different from "throwing money at the problem." "Creating Jobs" only helps when the jobs are useful and produce something else of value.
I don't know anything about how cost effective the Hoover Dam or various bridges and public works projects have been in the past, but assuming that they _were_ cost effective, these are examples where "Creating Jobs" is a good thing that stimulates the economy in a good way, because it not only gives people money to spend, but it adds overall value to the system. The Hoover Dam added irrigation, water supply, and power, while bridges add lower transportation costs.
On the other hand, paying someone to sit like a night watchmen on P2P Networks or paying someone to replace the White House Carpet or repaint the ceilings doesn't really help anyone because nothing of value is being created. You're just shuffling money around, and its really no different economy-wise than just _giving away_ the money. People are going to spend it either way.
This isn't to say I don't support re-carpeting or re-painting the White House if it needs it, I am merely saying that the catch-phrase "creating jobs" doesn't do the system any good unless the jobs are worth doing.
Why is everyone believing that "creating" a bunch of temporary jobs is good?
They are just throwing money around with hopes that it will do something. It wont. If it creates 30,000 jobs that last for 1 year it's simply going to cause a secondary aftershock in the economy.
Spend the money to create permanent real solutions instead of this, "OMG!OMG! hurry spend money! HURRY!" thing they are doing now
I personally wished they would have not even voted on the damn thing until May and took the time to make it right. They rush this crap and then it always ends up a half assed cluster fornication that does nothing for anyone but a bunch of in people that helped pen the damned thing.
Plus the Republicans are as bad as the Dems on this, both sides have thrown in bullshit riders on the bill to turn it into a money-grab for pet interests. I so wish the president had line item veto so he could strike off all the crap that rides on things like this.
Create a real IT-CERT system that has real experts not some useless CIO or CTO and let them advise the country on IT needs. Kind of like the Surgeon General. But an IT-General that actually has degrees and active knowledge in IT and CS.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is not a democracy. It is a republic. You should learn the difference before you end up with neither.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
Um, so do you REALLY think that Obama and ilk DON'T KNOW THAT???
Of course they know that. What better way to solidify power and wealth that to continue the problem? The stimulus bill was the perfect way to embed cool stuff like Electronic Medical Records (which was the real goal) the enable more government. Not to mention gaining 36% of Citibank.
Problem is this however, IF you let the economic pain go on too long, people are liable to start screaming for your beheading on public TV. Ukraine today is on the verge of major riots, they want ALL of their government and banks exiled.
Thialand wants the same thing last week. They had the best quote of the week: "This government is full of robbers!"
So in 18 months they will reimplement Reaganomics (and call it something else, Pelosiomics?).
They Live, We Sleep
Awww. False dichotomy win?
Palin/Romney 2012! I'll take leaders who believe that the earth is 6,000 years old for $200, Alex.
The sad thing is, you probably really believe what you just posted is actually true.
Because it sure isn't like news media to deliberately paint an inaccurate picture of any candidate, now is it?
Or are you too brain-addled to remember "fake-but-accurate"?
And FWIW, I'd rather have someone in charge who believes wrongly about irrelevant things like how old the Earth is than some pandering twit who things he can tax and spend his way out of a recession despite all evidence to the contrary.
The Republicans mandated that the GSEs make bad loans so poor minorities could end up in houses they couldn't afford?
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
Anyone can repeat the definitions of a Republic and a Democracy. Remember, people advocated a republic instead of a democracy because they thought slaves, women, and non-land owners were too stupid and not invested enough to be allowed to vote.
I see you have been properly indoctrinated by one of the progressive schools. Your argument makes no sense with regards to the form of government, since they *still* could have formed a democracy, just set land-owning white men as the only voters. A Republic means that *every person* is sovereign. It means that the plurality, or the collective, or whatever you call it *cannot* impose its will on individuals, because individuals are sovereign, and their rights are *inherent*, not granted by the state, as you would like it to be.
Furthermore, I looked up the quote. Did you read the rest of that paragraph?
"The Americans, on the other hand, are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of self-interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state." --Alex de Tocqueville
How did you end up believing the exact opposite of what that quote actually meant?
You have missed an important part of the quote: the "willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property" part. It's an important distinction. You seem to think that congress spending other people's money that they confiscate at gunpoint somehow as generosity or compassion. That, however, is corrupt self-interest rather than the "self-interest rightly understood" that motivates people to help their neighbor. Take a look at New Orleans today. Compare the federal programs involved in repair and renovation to the Habitat for Humanity (kudos to Carter for his involvement there, BTW) and other private programs. Which ones are working?
Just how did you get such a twisted viewpoint of reality?
I actually already know. Through propaganda,
Ah, of course. Your state-run education and the drooling-over-socialism mainstream media.
They have convinced low income midwesterners that cutting the taxes for the rich will somehow result in a better economy for them.
Sigh. You're like a parrot. It's really about what drives the economy. Is it government confiscating money from private citizens to spend it on a $40 billion program that benefits a few, or is it people deciding for themselves how to invest their money? History is pretty clear that government is wasteful, corrupting, fraught with inefficiency, and produces absolutely $0 in new wealth.
As far as your hatred of Carter, that's a pretty standard parroting. I'd be interested if you could name any specific policies that you believe led to the economic conditions of that era.
First, presidents don't really have a lot of impact on the economy. They can either interfere (FDR) or get out of the way (Reagan). This can have some impact, but none have had the kind of impact that FDR's ruinous policies did.
Still, Carter's policies were horrible:
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia