Now That We're All Afraid Of A Cyberwar, The Gov't Starts Legislating
from the well-that'll-fix-things dept
We've discussed the overhyped moral panic around the concept of a cyberwar, and how the term is abused -- potentially just as a way for government contractors to get hundreds of millions in easy government contracts. And, it looks like that process has only just begun. Senator Joe Lieberman is apparently about to unveil a "Cybersecurity" bill that doesn't seem to attack any real issue in making the government more secure. Instead, it looks like it really just seeks to limit competition in what government agencies can purchase. In other words, it'll just make things more expensive for the government, while probably not doing much to make anything or anyone more secure.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: cyberterrorism, cyberwar, politicians
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100518_3081.php?oref=topstory
Sounds similar to the pretext used to justify regulating public airwave and cable infrastructure into a monopoly. "How can we people to build new cableco infrastructure [give monopoly power because cableco is supposedly a natural monopoly] while encouraging various opposing opinions and the freeflow of news" or "How can we regulate the limited public airwave space to become more organized and less chaotic while still encouraging all various opinions and news to be distributed." The solution? Allow the government to require licenses and then, to get the people to accept these licenses, limit the amount of public airwaves any single entity can own. Then, once people get used to that, start removing those limitations over time and, behind the public's back, start ensuring that all important news and opposing viewpoints get systematically censored from the public (which is what we have now, ie: the news and viewpoints here on techdirt gets censored from the public) and that there is a monopoly on all content and on all the information distribution channels.
But, of course, the natural monopoly card doesn't work with the Internet. The chaotic public airwave card doesn't work either, since there is practically unlimited information channels. So what card do they have to pull now to turn the Internet into a shopping mall where all important information gets censored? The homeland security card.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I cringe when I read this kinda government regulation news. If the government was really interested in the public interest they would fix copyright law, they would first fix patnet law, they would stop granting cableco/telco monopolies, and they would fix the current broadcasting infrastructure that ensures a monopoly on both content and distribution channel and that systematically censors important news. But instead, they are merely seeking to regulate the Internet to turn it into a shopping mall. I do not want the government to turn the Internet into what they have turned everything outside the Internet into.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Perfect Cyberwar Weapon
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
China is equally afraid
Ninety percent on all PC's in China - whether personal, academic, corporate or government PC's - have pirated copies of MS Windows, which means that these PC's cannot run Windows Update. The vast majority of PC's in China have unpatched vulnerabilities - many are actually already infected with malware.
China is running its' own cyberwar scare campaign - there are many articles in the Chinese press about various research institutions has PC's hacked and secrets stolen. China is extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks and they are very aware of it. The Chinese government has a program in place to remove MS-based software from all government computers. It would appear that this program has a long way to go - with vastly more than 50%, possibly as much as 90% of government PC's still running Windows.
The last thing on the Chinese governments' mind at the moment is starting a cyberwar. They'd lose it and they know it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The US govt's preferred automated security technologies eventually making their way to my computer? Thanks, but no thanks.
But given numerous states are now building or are preparing to build out national internet infrastructure, we may have no choice but to purchase routers with killswitches built in - or whatever - in a decade's time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
for whom the bell tolls
I suspect that the general population is not off limits.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The so called cyber war
it shallbe because of ACTA
it shall be because of patents and copyrights
it shall be US that stand for true freedom versus you that stand for profit taking and malicious prosecution of the poor and disabled
it shall be because you say its FOR the children yet you harbour the priests that rape and molest them
it shall be because you in fact do not have compassion
we tried it the nice way
now have it another way
lets just see what happens when all the worlds hackers fuck with the usa at once ....are you game ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It'll Do Something All Right
=========================
Oh no...what it'll guarantee is that companies like Microsoft who are incompetent with security get all the Government contracts while keeping out those pesky capable competitors...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]