President Obama Signs Executive Order Saying That Now He's Going To Be Really Mad If He Catches Someone Cyberattacking Us
from the oh-come-on dept
This, apparently, is not an April Fool's joke. This morning, President Obama signed an executive order [pdf] allowing the White House to issue sanctions on those "engaging in significant malicious cyber-enabled activities." I'm sure the Chinese state hackers behind the Github DDoS are shaking in their boots.To make this work, the President officially declared foreign hacking to be a "national emergency" (no, really) and basically said that if the government decides that some foreign person is doing a bit too much hacking, the US government can basically do all sorts of bad stuff to them, like seize anything they have in the US and block them from coming to the US. Because that won't be abused at all.
Look, everyone agrees that there's a lot of online hacking and computer attacks going on. So much of what we do in the world has moved online, so of course that's going to be a target. But giving a general "ARRRRRGGH! HACKING BAD! WHITE HOUSE MAD!" executive order seems incredibly pointless and counterproductive. It seems like yet another example of politicians feeling the need to do something because there's a problem -- but not having any good ideas on what to actually do that will help solve the problem. So they just do something to say they did something, never mind how toothless it is -- or (more importantly) how the broad and vague definitions set forth in the "something" they do can (and will) be used in the future against perfectly reasonable actions and actors.
It's stories like these that make actual computer security folks shake their heads in confusion at politicians. You don't solve cybersecurity issues with vague executive orders. You do it with better security practices (and not undermining those practices with backdoors and stockpiling zero days).
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Filed Under: cybersecurity, executive order, national emergency, president obama, sanctions, white house
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protecting intellectual property
SOPA would have allowed point-and-remove-from-Internet; what the copyright industry gets instead is point-and-bankrupt, which is likely to be almost as good.
We can expect open source developers of "tools which might enable piracy" to be thrown into the asset seizure mix.
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The King has spoken
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Re: The King has spoken
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Re: The King has spoken
We can not have any of that sort of thing occurring on our watch.
- Congress
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Re: The King has spoken
And He has accomplished something all right.
You're not gonna like what was accomplished though, as its pretty much the exact opposite of what he has claimed publically - as usual.
Life in the USA is about to become one step closer to Hell.
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Hypocrisy, thy name is the USG
Keep in mind, this is the exact same government where multiple government agencies have argued that they should be allowed to hack any computer or network, no matter where on the planet it's located. So apparently hacking is only a bad thing when someone other than the USG is doing it.
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Re: Hypocrisy, thy name is the USG
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Re: Re: Hypocrisy, thy name is the USG
Iran is hacking us, Iran is hacking us!
Bomb bomb bomb
I'm sure the only hypocrites are the USG.
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Dumb dumb DUMB!
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Re: Dumb dumb DUMB!
Unless you have an operational need to do so -- and you almost certainly don't -- firewall out the entire country. And Korea, while you're at it. Well-curated lists of all of their network allocations are available here:
http://okean.com/asianspamblocks.html
I find it useful to update my firewalls about once a week with those and to enjoy the peace and quiet that results as every single packet originating there is dropped on the floor without so much as an acknowledgment.
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Re: Dumb dumb DUMB!
Most of them are hacked Chinese machines in the control of western (largely American) hackers in the form of botnets. In USA, people don't and wont get charges (IMO, for good reason) for hacking Chinese assets or property, and this is the result.
People do not just randomly scan the internet using assets that can be linked to them, or can be shut down by their ISP. They use hacked stuff that wont get searched by their own government.
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Except us
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Wait until the NSA...
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House of cards
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Re: House of cards
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One of These Things Is Not Like the Other
I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, find that the increasing prevalence and severity of malicious cyber-enabled activities originating from, or directed by persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with this threat.
Executive Order on Terrorist Financing (Sep. 24, 2001)
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that grave acts of terrorism and threats of terrorism committed by foreign terrorists, including the terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon committed on September 11, 2001, acts recognized and condemned in UNSCR 1368 of September 12, 2001, and UNSCR 1269 of October 19, 1999, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on United States nationals or the United States constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and in furtherance of my proclamation of September 14, 2001, Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks, hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.
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National Emergency
This order is presumably intended to - in effect - preemptively reclassify all major hacking incidents as terrorism. Individuals and organisations identified are now subject to surveillance and response under the terms set by the Patriot Act and other rules, rather than normal due process.
The order also functionally makes the acquisition of "trade secrets" into terrorism. "[...] any person determined [...] to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have engaged in, the receipt or use [...] of trade secrets misappropriated through cyber-enabled means [...] just became subject to Patriot Act rules.
This, logically, must include everyone involved in the last big Sony hack, every file-sharing-site where the movies appeared, everyone who downloaded copies and - you're going to love this, I just know it - every journalist who received and wrote about the various leaked emails.
Congratulations everyone, the President of the United States of America just declared all of us to be de facto terrorists, subject to unlimited surveillance and attack, at the whim of any branch of the US government that wants to do so.
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Re: National Emergency
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Re:
We have met the enemy, and they are us.
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Well then, we're just one cyber pearl harbor away from a third-term Obama.
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For what purpose?
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The five following presidents declared about 50 emergencies, and about 30 of those emergencies remain in effect (as of Oct. 2014). The emergency powers give the President the ability to enforce economic sanctions on his own say-so.
(Background.)
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Has the US even thought this sanction policy through all the way? The US will more sanctions levied against it than any other country on the planet! Thanks NSA!
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Welcome to the New War.... same as the Old War.
That is merely the "public perception ploy", that allows this new "War On ____" to get full tax-traction and support of law.
In this case, its a "War On Hackers", and once you start to realize exactly what this particular "War On" allows the Feds to do, you will be seeing this legislation in a whole new light.
You do remember the recent kerfuffle about letting Corporate America - other-wise known as the Billionaire Fascist Club - run "attack wares" - called "defense wares", legally against "perceived" cyber assaults.
Well, now they have an executive order that will nicely immunize them against any repercussions, should they, say, fry the computers of an on-line chess club by mistake, in their retaliations against some unknown hackers or an Anonymous DDOS attack on their network.
And I'll betcha they now have access to tax-payer funding for research and development of new and better attack, errrr... defense wares, as well, and maybe even access to NSA Brand(TM) anti-cyber tools.
And ya'all should by now, know exactly what total immunity from all consequences of one's actions lead to.
If not, look no further than the CIA, FBI, NSA, NYPD, and all the other so-called public-servants of the USG, who are now laws unto them-selves, answering only to... well.... not you, that's for sure.
If you're having difficulty still, you might want to simply see this new executive order as the declaration of the War on Hackers, which will now be waged like the War on Drugs, and the War on Terror.... that is, forever and on your dime.
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For a non american Citizen
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a new purse
This EO is the govt's replacement purse. Simple as that.
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