In response to a federal judge's concerns about computer security, Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb has ordered a nationwide Internet shutdown that has had the unwanted effect of putting critical operations at a virtual standstill, Bureau of Indian Affairs officials and employees said on Thursday.
According to an internal memorandum signed by McCaleb, all regional officials were told to verify that "all computers have been disconnected" from the Internet. Any employee who "attempts to circumvent" the directive by going online would face termination, stated the document.
Issued on Wednesday, the decision came after U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said trust assets belonging to 300,000 American Indians were in danger of being hacked by malicious users. In an order of his own that was protested by a government lawyer, Lamberth told the Department of Interior to cut Internet service to systems housing individual Indian trust data and computers with access to that data.
But a number of BIA directors and superintendents have questioned McCaleb's reaction, saying it "doesn't make sense." By removing Internet capabilities from every agency and office, tasks not related to the Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust -- such as e-mail and payroll for employees -- have been shut down, they said.
Slashdot Mirror
And with this post I do thee unsubscribe from my RSS reader. Goodnight Slashdot, it was fun but your content has become moronic and useless.
It's clearly not his fault that the DOI decided to pull the plug on everything, as outlined here:
h ow full.asp?ID=pol01/1272001-1
http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/Headlines/s
In response to a federal judge's concerns about computer security, Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb has ordered a nationwide Internet shutdown that has had the unwanted effect of putting critical operations at a virtual standstill, Bureau of Indian Affairs officials and employees said on Thursday.
According to an internal memorandum signed by McCaleb, all regional officials were told to verify that "all computers have been disconnected" from the Internet. Any employee who "attempts to circumvent" the directive by going online would face termination, stated the document.
Issued on Wednesday, the decision came after U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said trust assets belonging to 300,000 American Indians were in danger of being hacked by malicious users. In an order of his own that was protested by a government lawyer, Lamberth told the Department of Interior to cut Internet service to systems housing individual Indian trust data and computers with access to that data.
But a number of BIA directors and superintendents have questioned McCaleb's reaction, saying it "doesn't make sense." By removing Internet capabilities from every agency and office, tasks not related to the Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust -- such as e-mail and payroll for employees -- have been shut down, they said.
This is the same idea as dub plates. ;)
Except with a high-tech gloss.
The more things change, the more they stay the same