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America's Cybersecurity Czar, Howard Schmidt, Steps Down
wiredmikey writes "In December of 2009, after months of waiting, the Obama Administration named Howard Schmidt as the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator. After more than forty years in the IT community, the nation's first cyber czar will retire at the end of the month. Schmidt, after just over two years of government service, said he would retire in order to spend more time with his family and to entertain teaching opportunities in the cyber field. Schmidt was at the reins when the White House introduced its international strategy for cyberspace, and also helped create the controversial National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, an initiative that would allow people to obtain a single credential as a one-time password (on a token or mobile device) to do business on the Internet. Schmidt will be replaced by Michael Daniel, currently the head of the White House budget office's intelligence branch."
Is Mudge still available?
I mean, really.... Grey hair, Fred Thompson look alike... They don't exist in IT. Is federal security locking up the punch cards?
Too... many... oxymorons...
Cannot... resist...
Slightly off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks the word "cyber" is a silly 90's throwback?
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Schmidt will be replaced by Michael Daniel, currently the head of the White House budget office's intelligence branch.
Um, come again?
Someone kindly point out what makes this manager-of-auditors-of-bean-counters, with a background totally unrelated to cybersecurity or even IT in general, qualified to coordinate the nation's response to Chinese and Iranian hackers?
Now there's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.
Really, the US is going with cyber. So hi-tec sounding.. for Doctor Who 1964.
and thats going on his CV, 40 years of IT experience described for the clueless. Should get a gig that pays extremely well.
Welcome to the future.
The Bolsheviks had the right idea when they rise up and got rid of them. But since it's America you can just lay them off and not have to shoot their wives and families.
The White house can have a policy wonk, but no need to give them " czarlike" powers or any more title than "advisor." The Guy who was elected shouldn't be insulated from responsibility by an unelected staffer with a big title and media who go along with the fiction that he hassome kind of independent authority.
I'm sure he'll stamp his authority and re-invigorate the department by immediately setting up a Blue Ribbon committee to come up with the selection criteria for choosing an external consulting firm which will be tasked with planning a review of the mandatory fonts to be used on all internal memoranda.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
i chuckled at this, "cyber field" , really?
To the federal government "Cyber Security" means "...how we protect the IT assets of banks, large corporations, and others who give us large campaign contributions. You little people are on your own. Piss off."
I mean, really.... Grey hair, Fred Thompson look alike... They don't exist in IT.
I see you've never been inside the building I work in.
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Your "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" credentials, or "Trusted Identity", would be naturally abreiviated as "NaSTI", so in practice when we recieved an authentication token, we would be "getting nasty", we might refer to the authentication process "doing the nasty", you could say to your friends or co-workers to "show me your nasty", or you might simply suggest "let's get nasty".
It is imperative that the public enjoy the bennefits of this hillarious technology as soon as possible.
I usually think back to a very common use/meaning of the word "cyber" in 90s chatrooms. (I have no connection to that article, it was just one of the first useful search results.)
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