Slashdot Mirror
Why Laws Won't Save Banks From DDoS Attacks
kierny writes "Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) should know better. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee claimed to told NBC News that the Operation Ababil U.S. bank disruption DDoS campaign could be stopped, if only private businesses had unfettered access to top-flight U.S. government threat intelligence. Not coincidentally, Rogers is the author of CISPA (now v2.0), a bill that would provide legal immunity for businesses that share threat data with the government, while allowing intelligence agencies to use it for 'national security' purposes, thus raising the ire of privacy rights groups. Just one problem: Numerous security experts have rubbished Rogers' assertion that threat intelligence would have any effect on banks' ability to defend themselves. The bank disruptions aren't cutting-edge or stealthy. They're just about packets overwhelming targeted sites, despite what Congressionally delivered intelligence might suggest."
These folks obsessed with a "negative peace" by making more laws should study history.
In the name of fighting money laundering--an activity primarily associated with the War on Drugs--Congress passed a law requiring all transactions around $5k or more to be logged and sent to federal law enforcement. Paying in cash for everything is now being called a sign you might be a terrorist. Paying in cash is also *gasp* resistant to DDoS attacks. The coralling of most of our commerce into the hands of banks has effectively made banks a target that can cripple unrelated businesses. If we were mostly a cash society, it'd be no big deal. The worst a DDoS could do is delay the processing of your paycheck or an ATM withdrawal.
NO
... I don't think 'rubbished' is a legitimate word.
What's needed is a big lawsuit by a big bank against Microsoft for willful negligence. (Def: Intentional performance of an unreasonable act in disregard of a known risk, making it highly probable that harm will be caused.") Knowingly distributing operating systems which are known to be remotely exploitable to attack other systems fits that definition.
Microsoft's EULA doesn't protect them here. The victim is a third party, not their own customer, and not a signatory to the EULA. Nor does this require a class action. There are single banks big enough to take this on.
No matter how justified that deterrent is made (by creating it as a law). To stop the most determined people from doing what they will do.
Should banks be protected from attack? I would say in a perfect world were banks were innocent and served a purpose other then gambling on your own investment into them. Maybe.
But as it stands now, banks should be left out in the cold to defend themselves, and in ways that don't violate our laws. They need no more special justifications placed in our society for them.
These people want this information shared for their own purposes.
This has nothing at all to do with protecting banks from DDoS -- it's about ensuring government access to all of our data. If they can get private industry to hand them data they can't collect on their own then they can circumvent other laws.
I agree with the assessment that no law is going to make this kind of attack hitting from all over the world (and probably on zombie computers) go away.
These people just want the total surveillance world that scares the rest of us.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
NO
There actually is, but the main body of Congress routinely ignores it because the seat of their collective pants tell them to.
Representatives like Rogers like to get laws on the books with their names bandied about them, to show that they're not just fooling around, then they can get back to the business of whatever their big campaign donors want them to do. Circus and bread.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If terrorist surveillance information isn't enough, then the banks will have only one logical next step: operate their own armed aerial drones.
This is beyond oxymorons. They're sadistically toying with our sanity to watch us break. It's seagulls and alka seltzers.
Laws without respect and/or a gun won't protect you from anything.
It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, Many laws, like CISPA, RICO, etc., deserve no respect, and sometimes it takes a gun to remove them from the books, or to keep them from being put there in the first place when majority rule fails.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
That's a pretty good solution especially since it allows for efficient filtering of messages of precisely the sort that congressionally delivered intelligence are concerned about.
I'm ashamed to say that Rogers is my congressman. I've even voted for him several times. As much as I'd like to vote for someone who excels in all areas, to bad our choices are normally choosing between an idiot and a half-wit.
Given that a lot of these problems stem from inherent design flaws with our current Internet protocols, perhaps we ought to start improving upon the 20 and 30 year old protocols we've been relying on. Fundamental scale and design flaws will continue to empower bad people to do bad things so long as it continues to be nearly effortless. BGP, DNS, IPv4... You can only build on a foundation for so long before its age and brittleness beings to cause serious problems.
"Military intelligence" just met its match in the oxymoron sweepstakes.
I'm not sure that we have a choice. "Because its hard" is probably not going to be a sufficient excuse with respect to the critical mass we are heading toward. If everything that the world has invested in standing on top of the Internet is so important, than all that important stuff is going to need to experience the growing pain of adapting to new redesigned transit protocols. The alternative seems to be a sheer cliff.
To put it another way. The wolf does not adhere to the laws of the little pigs. If your tired of him blowing your house down, you need to stop thinking about patching holes in your straw house. Reenforcing reeds isn't a scalable solution. You need to start building the houses with bricks.
This is coming from the guy that boasted on Twitter how much money he received from lobbyists that support CISPA... A truly devoted corporate **ahem** civil servant. It's no surprise that 2 out of 3 people would rather have a colonoscopy than the current congress.
http://boingboing.net/2013/03/23/congressman-boasts-on-twitter.html
No sig for you! Come back one year!