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Obama Forms Commission To Bolster US Cyber Security (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the a-matter-of-national-security dept.

An anonymous reader writes: President Obama unveiled a commission of private, public and academic experts to bolster the US cyber security sector. The Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity will be co-chaired by former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and Tom Donilon, the President's former national security adviser. Some other notable members include MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga, Microsoft Research VP Peter Lee, Uber's current (and Facebook's former) Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan, Frontier Communications Executive Chairperson Maggie Wildrotter, and Annie Anton, chair of the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. The specific goals of the commission are to: "Raise the level of cybersecurity in both the public and private sectors, deter, disrupt, and interfere with malicious cyber activity aimed at the U.S. or its allies and respond effectively to and recover from cyber incidents."

10 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Recommendation #1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't set up your own personal e-mail server to do government business!

    1. Re:Recommendation #1 by KGIII · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I thought it was broken into by a guy from Romania, he's either here in the US now or he's soon to be on the way here. There's a blurb about him in a short(ish) documentary called "Most Dangerous Town on the Internet." He's some Romanian dude and he broke into that and a few other things.

      At least I'm pretty sure that's how the story goes and is how we initially found out about Mrs. Clinton's rogue email server. There was just an article a week or two ago (here on Slashdot) that indicated he was on his way to the United States, he's being/has been extradited to face charges on US soil for the crimes committed on US soil.

      In the documentary, he laments being sentenced to five years. I can only imagine that he's going to be a whole lot more unhappy after he gets a federal sentence that is 4 to 10 times as long in a real federal penitentiary.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  2. no clue on the council by JonathanP.Bennett · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yay, totally filled with executive types that have no actual clue about computer security. Maybe if there were actual security researchers, hackers, and programmers working on the problem... Wait, we already are working on it, and still no silver bullets.

  3. Re:"The specific goals of the commission are to:.. by hguorbray · · Score: 2

    they could start by not forcing (or allowing) backdoors or weak or broken encryption on Software or Hardware....

    and beefing up the reporting requirements and penalties for security breaches that expose private and personal data would be another thing to aspire to.

    -I'm just sayin'

  4. Step 1. stop the Government from making it worse! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The first step towards making Security better is to stop the Government from trying to make it worse.

    stop demanding that security be weakened,

    This is not only a matter of stopping efforts to require backdoors in products, but also stop secrecy around warrents for data

    How do we, or anyone else (including the people at Microsoft) know that all the the "National Security" letters that they have received from different people over the years actually came from the Government? There have been enough issues that I'm sure the bad guys have copies from somewhere. What stops them from sending something out demanding data?

    David Lang

  5. Isn't this the NSA's job? by Snotnose · · Score: 2

    Seriously, they spend billions on cracking systems, zero day exploits, breaking encryption, etc. Why doesn't Obummer just say the NSA has to let manufacturers know of the defects in their products?

    Yeah yeah, I know. The NSA is all terrorists, and his new organization is all show no substance.

  6. "The most transparent administration in history... by gavron · · Score: 2

    ...is not this one. This one seeks to curtail privacy, remove encryption, punish whistleblowers, and use the Espionage Act and Treason against any and all (except their own David Petraeous and Hillary Clinton).

    Their own OPM was the subject of the worst hack of its time. http://www.computerworld.com/a...

    This administration and our government in general have NO CLUE how to protect systems, and the word 'cyber' isn't used by anyone who isn't ripping off the government for money. The word used to mean 'sex'. http://io9.gizmodo.com/today-c...

    I have great faith that if the Obama Administration wanted to do something useful that they would have come out AGAINST the Feinstein draft bill, that they would have come out against forced decryption of iPhones; that they would not charge Edward Snowded with treason, or in the alternative charge Hillary Clinton with treason.

    Absent all those, this is hardly more than pissing in the wind.

    E

  7. It's an election year by tomhath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Obama has what? Nine months left? This commission is nothing but a publicity stunt to try and make it look like his administration actually did something in the eight years they had.

  8. Ceremonial Nonsense by Dega704 · · Score: 2

    If they want us to believe they actually care about cyber security, the first thing they can do is stop certain 3 letter agencies from waging war on it.

  9. Re:"The specific goals of the commission are to:.. by KGIII · · Score: 2

    If we go by quantity alone, the US Government has lost more of my data than any other entity - as far as I am aware. For better or worse, my data is all over the place. I've had countless notices. I probably have a lifetime's worth of free credit monitoring which really doesn't do me a damned bit of good. Instead, I have the major credit bureaus set the flag to, "Do not issue credit." I think it was something like $10 to do that? I'm not really sure - it probably ought to be free.

    If I did want credit (sometimes a card is handy) then I have to call and make a one-time request for them to remove the flag and they only remove it for one specific creditor. An oddity is that the one specific creditor is not actually always the name of the lending institution. I'm not sure why that is. For example, it's not "Franklin/Somerset Federal Credit Union" if I want to get credit from them. They do their checks under a name of a larger entity which is sort of like a union of credit unions.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."