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Congress Gives Federal Agencies Two Weeks To Tally Backdoored Juniper Kit (csoonline.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the get-it-fixed dept.

itwbennett writes: In an effort to gauge the impact of the recent Juniper ScreenOS backdoors on government organizations, the House of Representatives is questioning around two dozen U.S. government departments and federal agencies. The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent letters to the agencies on Jan. 21, asking them to identify whether they used devices running the affected ScreenOS versions, to explain how they learned about the issues and whether they took any corrective actions before Juniper released patches and to specify when they applied the company's patches. The questioned organizations have until Feb. 4 to respond and deliver the appropriate documents, a very tight time frame giving that 'the time period covered by this request is from January 1, 2009 to the present.'

5 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Proscecutions? by jdwolfe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who at Juniper is getting prosecuted for selling backdoor'd routers to the United States Federal Government?

    1. Re:Proscecutions? by sims+2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Prosecuted? Somebody's probably going to get an award for thinking ahead. They had their kit backdoored before the government even made it a requirement! Whats good for the goose is good for the gander and all that.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  2. Isnt this a good thing? by thesupraman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I thought government security organisations of the three letter variety were busy trying to convince
    us that security backdoors and 'special' access for government level players was a good thing?

    Surely they should just be promoting this as a feature, that enables the rounding up of literally millions
    of pedophiles, drug addicts, and terrorists Real Soon Now?

    Oh, wait, they are not sure its only THEIR backdoors? Dont tell me other governments may also be
    involved? But surely if its good for one government to have access, its better if more do - hell, they ALL
    should, right? So they can enforce their own local views of What Is Right?

    Are we being told only some governments are trustworthy? Can we please have a list? What happens when
    governments change? This is all just too complicated!

    It is a pity most police are now just too busy collecting revenue to do much police work, it all seemed a bit
    simpler when they used to investigate actual crimes against the populace.

  3. Re:ScreenOS is dying anyways by msauve · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Fortinet?

    Perhaps they should simply ask the NSA, they should know exactly when the backdoor stopped working on any particular site.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  4. Re:In other words by michelcolman · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't know what they're complaining about, I thought they wanted backdoors?