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White House Announces Initiative To Fight Botnets
benfrog writes "ISPs and financial-services companies would share data about computers made into botnets under a pilot program announced today by the Obama administration. From the article: 'The voluntary principles announced today include coordinating across sectors and confronting the problem globally. They were developed by the Industry Botnet Group, comprising trade groups including the Business Software Alliance and TechAmerica.' The White House is also backing a bill proposed by Joe Lieberman that would put the Department of Homeland Security in charge of cybersecurity of vital systems such as power grids and transportation networks."
Anyone want to start taking bets as to when a copy of uTorrent or Transmission will deem you as a part of the botnet?
I feel safer already.
I try not to be paranoid, but when I see the BSA and the department of Homeland Security are joining forces, I can't help but have a feeling of dread...
It really makes me wonder just what constitutes a botnet. After all, large numbers of computers contributing to torrent downloads are a form of bonnet also.
If this doesn't make you think the government has too much money and free time, nothing will.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Bittorrent = Terrorism.
I guarantee the BSA scumbags are already pushing this point.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
if botnets were the issue they'd ban windows and bam! all botnets down.
but botnets aren't the issue. illusion of control is.
It makes sense for "Homeland Security" to secure power grids, and critical infrastructure.
They know nothing of computer security, botnets, or doing much more than confiscation.
The BSA knows even less.
I would be excited to see a team of REAL security experts (Schneier and Kasperksky)
working together with the folks at http://garwarner.blogspot.com/ to eliminate the real threats.
Grandmothers, breastfeeding mothers, little girls with insulin pumps, and people who copy
Windows 98 are _NOT_ the real threat.
Ehud
to think that this is a not very subtle attempt to give the government an excuse to build a Great Firewall of America?
Great. I'm sure this will be every bit as successful as the war on poverty, war on drugs, war on terrorism. How are those doing anyway?
Is total garbage. He's one of the worst people in the world...total scumbag.
It is humorous that the BSA is taking charge of solving a problem that is essentially created by its members (and not able to solve it). The BSA is all about fighting for proprietary software. They ensure third parties (like antivirus companies) can't fix the code which lets botnets propagate and they ensure we don't have an Debian-like/apt-get like solution to software maintenance, distribution, and trust models.
This BSA lead solution is bound to fail.
The only thing I can conceive of working well to reduce or eliminate botnets is to free the software, implement official security standards all software need comply with, and fix the distribution problem. We would need to properly fund free software platforms and ecosystems. The move to free software with carefully scrutinised (think Debian) channels of trust exist and the software is available for third party review. These software repositories should require certain minimum security standards too. For the most part it's already being done as such with Debian although without any such standards (apart from trust in relation to distribution). They need to eliminate all but essential features of applications which execute scripts.
- applications should not generally implement support for unnecessary scripting features, embedded objects, etc
1. Web browsers should not have flash, PDF readers, java applets, GPU accelerated 'gaming' features, or silverlight.
2. PDF software should not support scripting or embedded objects (like flash).
3. Office software should not support macros; there is a business case although that needs restrictions and should not generally be in consumer office applications. Even within the business situation there needs to be restrictions on the businesses users ability to install such macros without technical advise.
4. E-mail clients and similar should not support scripting or even html except for a minimal subset of features.
5. Instant messaging software should also not implement scripting and limit any HTML to a subset of the standard.
6. Applications should not install third party plug-ins to web browsers or similar.
If I'm not mistaken, don't we already have at least one or two government agencies involved in information security? Why do we need to have more?
so...why dont you make all these pieces of software you believe should be made "your way"? I dont disagree with your wishlist,but dont just complain about it be about it
So nobody has a right to criticize anything that they don't personally have the skills to do themselves?
If you're dissatisfied with the airlines, don't bother with criticism, start your own. Train is late? Don't bitch. Start your own railroad. Your doctor commit malpractice or just does a crappy job? Don't whine, go to medical school and treat yourself. Your lawyer falls asleep in court and fails to properly represent you? Don't file a complaint with the Bar, get a law degree and represent yourself.
See how silly and arrogant that attitude is now?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Does it strike anyone else as ironic that on the one hand the United States is rushing to develop what it calls "cyber weapons" (side note: why must everything be prefixed with cyber anyway, especially when it has nothing to do with man machine integration?), which would include autonomous programs communicating amongst themselves and coordinating activities via a command / control channel (i.e. a "botnet"), while at the same time announcing an initiative to "fight" the very programs that they are also creating? Why must everything be couched in language suggesting a "war on whatever"? Why not simply say, "we will respond in kind to those who attack us using these weapons", acknowledging the obvious fact that such weapons are inevitable, and leave it at that.