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Schneier Says We Don't Need a Cybersecurity Czar
Trailrunner7 writes "Threatpost.com reports that security guru Bruce Schneier says not only should the NSA not run cybersecurity for the federal government, no one should. 'Really what I think is it shouldn't be anybody. We do better without a top-down hierarchy. Our economic and political systems work best when there isn't a dictator in charge, when there isn't one organization in charge. My feeling is there shouldn't be one organization in charge. Not only shouldn't it be the NSA, it shouldn't be anybody,' Schneier said."
The cybersecurity czar would more likely than not be mostly responsible for making sure that the public perceives that the feds are doing actually something while actually accomplishing very little other than to direct a few contracts to vendors who donated the right amount of money and/or were buddies of his while he was in school
Fixed that for you. Given the track record of the other "czar's" appointed by the Federal Government, you'll forgive me for my skepticism.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
At the Department of the Interior, "Alan Balaran, a court-appointed special master, soon confirmed that a team of hackers could break into the trust accounting system with relative ease and then write checks on the trust funds". Those trust funds were held for the benefit of Native American nations, who filed a multi-billion dollar lawsuit over the security problems.
There are sensitive systems all over.
No structure works too -- for tasks where there is a body of people who understand every part of that task. Think a Shaker barn raising. When you have a body of people who've mastered every aspect of a task and everyone can see what task needs more hands, then no structure is the way to go.
I am not sure about Shaker barn raising, but I am pretty sure you actually meant Amish barn raising. I know something about Amish barn raising (I have relatives among the Amish).
Amish barn raising is not "no structure". There is no formal structure, but there is a fairly strict informal structure. As a general rule everybody at an Amish barn raising has known everybody else there as long as they can remember and almost all of them are related to one degree or another.
The structure used for Amish barn raising is the best structure for any task involving a group of people that is small enough that everyone knows and trusts everyone else.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
... and Czars were also authoritarian monarchs in Russia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Or was that too obvious?