For those of us who create and maintain disaster and business continuity plans – we need to add an entirely new section: “Governmental Threats.”
While the Internet’s public purpose was to provide interconnectivity between researchers and institutions, the Advanced Research Projects Agency was also exploring how a loosely-coupled packet-switching network would allow continued connectivity and communications should a portion of the network be disabled by a natural disaster or a nuclear blast.
Over time the networking infrastructure grew until the browser became commonplace – and the Internet reached a self-sustaining critical mass (no pun intended) that had serious commercial value. More time passed and technologists observed that the costly connectivity that was supplied over dial-up and dedicated telephone lines could be had for a fraction of the total cost of other communications media.
So, the nation’s infrastructure and much of their commercial interests became entangled in technologies which require internet access. And, as nature would have it, things became interdependent and complicated. Consider the death and rebirth of pornography as a driver of technology. The old porno media, the eight-millimeter films and magazines gave way to video cartridges and disks – which in turn gave way to on-demand porn via the Internet. Freely available and in an abundance that would stagger the imagination. Of course, many of the communications common carriers and hosting services actually, but silently, appreciated the money they were deriving from such activities. People started talking about regulating the Internet to protect children from pornography, although an effort to establish an easily-blocked .xxx top-level domain was shunned. By the religious people who claimed that it made porn too easy to find, by the porn industry which claimed that it concentrated all offerings and made their product a commodity, by the vendors who saw that a downturn in porn activitiy would affect their bottom line as well as others with a dog in the hunt.
Politicians, the far-left in particular, started to look for ways to control and limit content on the internet; mostly to technologically censor or curtail the political speech that is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Keep this in mind during this discussion.
As more and more government agencies turned to the Internet for their communications needs, our enemies took notice. Attempting to crack Internet server systems to steal military intelligence and operational plans as well as to steal commercially valuable technology. Over time the web queries turned malicious, creating the means to wage cyberwar in an effort to disrupt our militaries command and control activities, intelligence and support efforts. To plant false information and penetrate our infrastructure with the goal of disabling power grids and causing havoc in the civilian population.
Enter the dual-edged sword …
As reported by The Hill …
“Cybersecurity bill to give president new emergency powers”
“The president would have the power to safeguard essential federal and private Web resources under draft Senate cybersecurity legislation.”
“According to an aide familiar with the proposal, the bill includes a mandate for federal agencies to prepare emergency response plans in the event of a massive, nationwide cyberattack.”
“The president would then have the ability to initiate those network contingency plans to ensure key federal or private services did not go offline during a cyberattack of unprecedented scope, the aide said.”
“Rockefeller and Snowe's forthcoming bill would establish a host of heretofore absent cybersecurity prevention and response measures, an aide close to the process said. The bill will ‘significantly [raise] the profile of cybersecurity within the federal government,’ while incentivizing private companies to do the same, according to the aide.
What?
“Additionally, it will ‘promote public awareness" of Internet security issues, while outlining key protections of Americans' civil liberties on the Web, the aide continued.”
I am not aware of any government agency, including the military, or private enterprise that is doing business on the Internet … and that does not take security seriously. Firewalls, anti-malware programs, intrusion detection are the norm; especially in the financial sector. Unfortunately, there are smart criminals and even student hackers who continually challenge the system. If we need to fund an initiative, I suggest increasing the NSA’s budget and let them and the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) take the point. Both have done great things in educating the public and providing tools to secure our infrastructure.
“Privacy groups are nonetheless likely to take some umbrage at Rockefeller and Snowe's latest effort, an early draft of which leaked late last year. When early reports predicted the cybersecurity measure would allow the president to ‘declare a cybersecurity emergency,’ online privacy groups said they felt that would endow the White House with overly ambiguous and far-reaching powers to regulate the Internet.”
Perhaps it is because these groups do not trust dishonest politicians who are pursuing a political agenda – some say to the benefit of our enemies, both foreign and domestic – rather than pursuing real security reform.
“The bill will still contain most of those powers, and a ‘vast majority’ of its other components ‘remain unchanged,’ an aide with knowledge of the legislation told The Hill. But both the aide and a handful of tech insiders who support the bill have nonetheless tried to dampen skeptics' concerns, reminding them the president already has vast — albeit lesser-known — powers to regulate the Internet during emergencies.”
If existing legislation needs tweaking so be it, so why create an entirely new bill if not to hide the more suspect legislative aspects from the American people. Burying the essential command and control portions in hundreds of pages which will be mostly unread by those who pass the bill in our name.
A matter of control?
By allowing the White House and Administrative Agencies such as the FCC to exert control over the Internet, we can anticipate a day when political decision-making becomes a factor in access, pricing and further regulation – until the Internet becomes a tariffed utility much like the screwed up telephone system which offers slice and dice pricing that makes little or no sense – but guarantees a healthy profit and a large tax subsidies for the common carriers.
“It is unclear when Rockefeller and Snowe will finish their legislation. And the ongoing debate over healthcare reform, financial regulatory reform, jobs bills and education fixes could postpone action on the floor for many months. Both lawmakers heavily emphasized the need for such a bill during a Senate Commerce Committee cybersecurity hearing …”
"’Too much is at stake for us to pretend that today’s outdated cybersecurity policies are up to the task of protecting our nation and economic infrastructure,’ Rockefeller said. ‘We have to do better and that means it will take a level of coordination and sophistication to outmatch our adversaries and minimize this enormous threat.’"
Why am I uneasy …
It requires an honest broker with ethical motives to conduct the affairs of state in such a manner as to minimize the disruption from any threats to the nation’s businesses and citizens.
Just as I never thought that I would see a self-avowed Communist and a cadre of socialists enter the White House’s front door and be given the keys to the kingdom, I cannot do much other than question the wisdom of ceding so much power to a man about whom so little is known and whose motives with regard to central-planned restrictive command and control legislation to date have been extremely suspect.
I also feel uneasy with people like Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who are more alike than they are different. They appear to be liberals of the same stripe even though they are from different parties. Trusting our national security to these two individuals is extremely scary and disheartening.
If Congress and the Administration is serious about security …
As someone not unfamiliar with computers and security, may I humbly suggest that we implement a national imperative to move from IPv4 to IPv6. While this sounds really geeky, the move will:
- Increase addressing capacity thus insuring that the Internet will not run out of addresses when everyday appliances and other devices are made “communicative”
- Increase security which supports a higher security level for securing IP communications by encrypting and/or authenticating all IP packets at the network layer.
- Offer transitional coexistence as IPv6 packets can be routed as IPv4 packets during a transitional phase.
This upgrade does not come without cost as older equipment must be replaced with newer equipment. And the fundamental complexity of processing packets of information increases. Both acceptable tradeoffs in the name of security. Security which does not impinge on the individual freedoms of Americans or ceding additional power to a questionable presidency.
Bottom line …
We need to be very, very cautious about politicians, especially so-called progressive politicians, subverting the Constitutional rights of Americans in the guise of protecting us from terrorists and criminals.
It was said best by Benjamin Franklin:
“Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security”
Enough said!
-- steve
Reference Links:
Cybersecurity bill to give president new emergency powers - The Hill's Hillicon Valley
Electronic Frontier Foundation – Note: The EFF is the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world. I am a member.
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