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."

Comments

Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

"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?

Re:Frist

[BigHungryJoe]

Here is my problem with the p2p babysitting -

what guidelines will they be using to determine what is child porn and what is not?

Some of the recent "child model" busts seem to be pushing the limit of what can be called "child porn". It's almost as if they're widening the definition of child porn so they'll have more people to bust.

Re:Frist

[Shakrai]

It's almost as if they're widening the definition of child porn so they'll have more people to bust.

Call me cynical but I don't think they care about having "more people" to bust. The Man isn't out to get us. The Man is out to generate splashy headlines and get elected to higher office. Nothing generates splasher headlines than "Think of the Children!"

Re:Frist

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't call you cynical for that viewpoint, I'd call you naive.

Of course the "Man" is looking for more people to bust - law enforcement is a huge industry worth billions of dollars, and like all industries, it is seeking to grow itself. And in law enforcement, how do you grow your market and secure jobs? You create more criminals.

Re:Frist

[Zero__Kelvin]

The fact that this has been modded to +5 is prima facia evidence that Slashdot has gone way down hill. Simply googling National Cyber Security Division will show that they are behind US-CERT. While they are not to be confused with CERT, but they do have the same stated objectives. Computer Emergency Response Teams are the bedrock of Computer Security. They don't monitor Internet traffic, they identify security issues and offer solutions. Taking the recent Obama Helicopter P2P fiasco as an example, they would point out that running P2P without verifying the Sharing settings are not exposing your whole system is a Bad Thing(tm).

Re:Frist

[Ethanol-fueled]

Call me cynical but I don't think they care about having "more people" to bust.

I disagree with that point.

They're obviously not catching a lot of terrorists so they need other numbers to justify their budget. They get their numbers by picking the low-hanging fruit after broadening the definition of "low-hanging" fruit, especially if it goes "across state lines", which almost all internet traffic does.

"The Man is out to generate splashy headlines and get elected to higher office. Nothing generates splasher headlines than "Think of the Children!"

True, and it's convenient for both law enforcement seeking bigger budgets and politicians seeking advancement. It's not convenient for your 16 year old son or daughter who has to register as a sex offender for life because they stored nekkid pics of themselves on their cell phone or computer.

In other news, "The People's Cube"...

[tcopeland]

...announces the Hope'N'Change Operating System. "Only 30% chance of crashing!"

Re:Here's an idea...

[tcopeland]

> How about stimulating jobs that actually produce something that others might want?

Fool! You've got it all wrong! I refer you to Iowahawk's Memo to America's Irresponsible Tea Party Whiners: STFU. A sample:

The most ludicrous aspect of these protesters is their utter lack of understanding that the mortgage bailout benefits everyone - even them. Let me explain to these unpatriotic whiners how the economy works: The money that government is now wisely investing in our mortgage system will free up billions of extra dollars in spending by Americans like me, which will directly create jobs. For you economic illiterates, this is what experts call the "multiplier effect."

For example, now that my mortgage worries are over, I was able to afford the down payment on a sweet new jet ski, directly creating jobs at Coralville Kawasaki. I also purchased a few items from my friend and local small business entrepreneur Randy Hansgard. Randy used that money to make high tech capital improvements in his business, like new grow-lights and an Ohaus 3-beam electronic scale. After I wrecked the jet ski, this created jobs at the Coralville Kawasaki service department. I also splurged by sending Linda a thoughtful Jenny Craig gift certificate with my partial January mortgage payment, because she's really been packing on the pounds lately.

See how it works? Now, go pay more taxes!

The mission, the people...

[GPLDAN]

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.

Re:The mission, the people...

[scubamage]

War in the conventional sense is the incorrect term. New cold war is more like it - and sadly this time we are completely out-gunned. The US has spent so much time dumbing down its educational system, ignoring math and sciences in lieu of budget increases to school sports, and completely ignoring the fact that college loans are the second leading cause of bankruptcy in the US (and you can't escape them through bankruptcy!). An educated populace is the only thing we could use to win a technical cold war. And we ain't got it.

Re:Good.

[Ogive17]

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.

Weak Postulate

[Anonymous Coward]

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."

Jobs shipped overseas

[Windrip]

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

How about a bit less cheerleading?

[EQ]

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.

DHS? WTF?

[EQ]

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.

Re:Good.

[A. B3ttik]

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.

Re:I know, right?

[TheUglyAmerican]

This is not a democracy. It is a republic. You should learn the difference before you end up with neither.