Slashdot Mirror
The FBI Wants To Know About Your IT Skills
AHuxley writes "The FBI, via the Office of Management and Budget, would like to find out more about your information technology expertise if you are part of InfraGard. Terms like 'practical utility' have been included in a 60-day emergency notice of information collection via the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. Is your boss or cubicle colleague part of InfraGard? It's a private, non-profit organization run as a public-private partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Are they passing info back about you or your company?"
Maybe it's not that sinister but that's the first thing that popped into my head. Looking at the website, it's initial intentions aren't that sinister but mandating that much sharing of information sounds a bit creepy. You guys are going to be DHS'd/FBI'd to death if you're not careful.
They want to be ready for the next July 4 just in case they need someone capable to infiltrate into some alien computer system.
The part I don't understand is why anyone would voluntarily become a part of InfraGrad and start "sharing information" about others in the first place.
... the Stasi of the IT world or am I misreading this? The wording seems intentionally diffuse.
While I'm against snooping without cause, something of this in a collaborative model isn't necessarily a bad thing, though it does open up for potential abuse. There are lots of times when I call up buddies ask them what sort of IT issues they're having with security, spam, etc, and this just seems to formalize it a bit, and get the circle of trust a little bigger. Companies too often seek to distrust the authorities for crimes because it will make their companies look weak. As such criminal will get away with things solely because no one reports them. This doesn't look like a secret "Stone Cutter" type group, just a way to get to know some local colleagues and keep more ears to more ground looking for potential threats.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Lol, "Self-identified as IT specialists" indeed. Thats one funny document. What would they need that kind of information for ? To evaluate bragging rights ?
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
Wekl, fwirstly, my tyuping sklills are spoty on.
Cash, that is, not just "influence" which might backfire. I heard that Stasi rates were rock bottom, but the US screwy agencies have deeper pockets. Hey, in these challenging times lots of folks would be willing to snitch (perhaps even inventively) on their colleagues and other obstacles to job security or promotion (=boss).
Not being a citizen of any NATO country, they'd probably offer me less, the bastards.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
So, if the FBI wants to ask for certain records they have to get a warrant.
But, if a member of InfraGard decides to provide the FBI with records without the FBI asking then it's a private citizen reporting "suspicious behaviour"
Or, would a member of InfraGard be considered an officer of the government, making any records they had access to inadmissable?
I'm guessing it's pretty clear that I'm not a lawyer.
I don't see any domestic surveillance embedded in what's online.
this gov org isn't as dumb as you think. or, restated, they aren't total idiots and don't fully disclose their actual intent and purpose.
not all gov agencies are as dumb as bush. in fact, bush's dumbness was a cover. no human could be THAT moronic and rise to the level of the most powerful man in the world if he's truly an idiot.
one of the smartest moves is to act dumb and it requires a certain kind of talent to pull it off. bush had that, innately.
operation TIPS is alive and well; just below the radar. things like this never go away. are you kidding me??
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
From the information provided, which is very little, it appears that the FBI is requesting information from people who have voluntarily joined an organization of IT professionals not just sponsored by but directly affiliated with the FBI. Why is this getting everyone's hackles up? It does not say that the information will be required of all members, nor does it say that members will be required to inform on their coworkers or companies. The ACM asks you about your IT skills, too. How is this different?
They only want information about the IT skills of their own members. How else would they process ONLY 28,000 responses at 2 minutes each? This doesn't even seem to apply to all Infragard members, only:
"Public and private professionals
self-identified as having information technology expertise."
This would also be why it's called:
"InfraGard Knowledge/Skills/
Abilities Profile"
IT seems kindof obvious that they might want to know what the skills of their own members are if they need assistance on something. Not like the FBI knows anything about technology.
Perhaps they're looking for resources for the next time they have an IT issue/project they need to not fuck up. According to their website, you need a background check to join. Seems like a good way to build a database of IT professionals that you don't need to do background checks on after the fact.
Disclaimer; I'm an Infragard member (have been for about 7 years). Why are they collecting this? Easy, they're public/private partnership that focuses on emergency response. "In the event", they want to know who within there membership has skills that may be needed. Don't like it, don't join (or quit). Don't want them to have your data, make them remove it (you have the legal right to do so). No conspiratorial aspect here.
The Stasi were very good at collecting information. In fact, they were too good. They collected so much that their analysts couldn't effectively evaluate even a fraction of it. They lacked IT resources (when compared to Western agencies) and the Stasi leadership should have shifted more manpower from spying to analyzing.
The FBI has access to unlimited IT resources, and the US intelligent community if very effective at evaluating the information that they have collected. Just look at how they stopped the underwear bomber . . .
. . . uh-oh . . . never mind . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I note that the web developers of InfraGaurd don't know how to change their favicon.ico from the sun logo.
Nice to see they're using Sun and Unix, I suppose, but who leaves the sun logo there?
Bigbrother, snoop, and even Stasi perhaps but KGB, Gestapo? No, as tempting as it may be, the FBI is not rounding up all IT people and sending them to the showers....
For now, they are just recruiting "volunteers" to watch for "suspicious behaviour" and report "unreliable elements".
Just the most obvious problems (as mentioned in other posts)
Another thing to keep in mind: The so-called "War on Terror" can be used to outlaw anything and anyone.
Soon after a high-profile Cyber-Attack all knowledge of critical infrastructure(tm) will become classified. Too bad for those lacking the official clearance for things they already know. The state will have to place such persons in "protective custody" camps to keep the terrorists from expoliting their knowledge. Unfortunately, even a short time spent in a such a camp will disqualify you from ever getting back to your former life: While they could'nt prove any previous contacts to "unreliable elements", now they know where you have met them. Finally, once the "unrecovereable elements" are confined to the camps it wont be long until some politician wants the money wasted on their upkeep be spent on his constituency instead. That is where the "showers" come in ..
I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who when passing through an airport security checkpoint is the only one who is more afraid of the TSA than I am of the terrorists. I have a far greater fear of getting arrested for forgetting to remove a leatherman from my bag or not emptying my water bottle than I am afraid of the plane getting blown up be some nutcase.
Yeah well you're not getting the same news I am buddy. Which is really not surprising... Try watch something other than Western media. Islam wants to rule the world? Riiight...
What about this: US does rule the world - most of it anyway - and the islamists are the only ones with enough balls to put up a fight. Why don't the radical extremists terrorize more liberal muslim countries that don't apply Shariah law then like Jordan and Turkey if they really want Shariah law everywhere? Those should be easier to change...
You don't have the slightest clue of what you're talking about. It's because of people with such absurd opinions like yours that eat whatever crap mainstream media feeds them that there are terrorists in the first place and we almost have to get naked when traveling by airplane. If at least the victims were all people like you, the problem would settle quickly...
As for England and Netherlands, well it's price of globalization. Wasn't it supposed to be a good thing anyway?
I would accept this if terrorists where actually poor people who have no other options in life and the only thing they can do is use their life to strike against their oppressors (as is possibly the case in other parts of the world). In reality the folk that attack western countries seem to be the well off folk who are radicalised beyond all rationality. They just make life worse for the rest of their people.
And for the question of if they have legitimate grievances against the west - they do but they exaggerate and combine legitimate ones with crazy conspiracy theories which frankly a child could debunk. They are not honest about the atrocities they commit - ie atrocities in darfur and sudan are all western propaganda etc and the popular belief that jews organised 9/11 even within al-quada. There is just no common acceptance of realty that would make negotiations feasible.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
Ignore the names and parties for the moment.
You can't blame the new guy for what the previous guy set up - that is just being childish and petty. What you can do is blame the new guy for taking a long time to fix the problems left by the previous guy. IMHO it hasn't been a long time yet
In this case I think Jerry Doyle is being childish and petty about where he is laying the blame.
New problems that arise are of course a completely different story but that's not what we are talking about, all this creeping authoritarionism because due process takes too long or requires expensive training of competatant people is well and truly a G.W. Bush legacy. It's not even about the party since McCain actively opposed the more extreme portions of it. It was alway more about things like Wolfowitz getting his girlfriend a better paying job than Rice with less responsibility than actually doing anything to benefit the USA.
I am an Infragard member. I was working for a university research group and was required to join Infragard as a part of this research. I did not like the idea of being forced to join an organization I knew little to nothing about so I did research into the organization first. I read up on all of the conspiracy theories about Infragard and spoke with some members before joining.
The conspiracy theories link this organization to "big brother" programs that encourage people to spy on their neighbors. This is not actually the case with Infragard - as far as I can tell.
From what I can see, this organization is put into place for very good reasons. Look into the Russian action in Georgia last year - a large component of that military action was cyber-based. The Russians took over the Georgian infrastructure (electric, news and radio) far before tanks rolled into Georgian territory. If the US is ever attacked on a large scale, our infrastructure will be the first strike. Infragard allows a secured group of IT professionals to be "in the loop" on potential threats that cannot be made widely public yet. It also allows these professionals to collaborate on security issues in real time - as they happen.
Say a new worm was propagating across major infrastructure networks. An administrator at the water company finds evidence of this worm and sends a message to Infragard asking if anybody else has seen it. A person working at the electric company reads that message and notices that it matches something they are addressing as well. The issue may be quickly escalated and addressed appropriately. If these individuals had to deal with conventional reporting then the link between two critical infrastructure networks experiencing the same problem at the same time may be missed.
In my experience Infragard does not care a bit about individuals ripping a CD or something. This is about bridging the gap between law enforcement and IT professionals in order to minimize the time it takes to address a potential cyber threat on critical infrastructure.
Registering your IT skills with Infragard is optional, not mandatory. This is not as evil as it sounds and I see much more upside to this than downside.
oh, I agree.
I'm actually afraid that TSA will blow up an airplane by mistake. Here's a small example.
I take a lot of pictures when I'm traveling for fun. I usually carry about 16hrs worth of batteries (which is about 1 AA / hour at the rate I shoot.) So I go to security w/ my batteries all nicely packaged tight. 4 in the cam, (A cannon S5IS, a good cam for my poor budget) and 3 sets of 4 in my camera bag. Each set is stable, all positives up, all in different locations in the bag. In the camera bag I have a micro tripod, a few lenses & cleaning cloth, and the charger for these batteries.
Some idiot at TSA takes them ALL and dumps em into a big ziplock. Loose, then tried to hand them to me. I just about shit a brick. I'm like hey, you can start a fire... (2650mah rapid discharge cells, not the strongest out there, but nothing to dismiss either) Whoops, I said the magic word. That led to a 20 minute wait while they determined that the batteries and camera posed no risk after they used "TSA tape" to tape them all together in a giant brick. This only after an interview about why I had the batteries and how they could catch fire. (by throwing them all in a bag loose!)
I'd shudder to think how they treat R/C lipos, where mishandling WILL cause a fire vs. might if things are just right...
To those who have never experienced a loose battery setting something on fire, it's not a fun experience.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.