March 2012
18 posts
1 tag
Has the ‘Cyber Pearl Harbor’ already happened?
DoD Buzz:
It’s a depressing thesis, but from all the public statements about cyber-losses, it sounds plausible. Unless a true “Cyber Pearl Harbor” — in which bad guys knock out the power grid or the financial system or our telecommunications — happens tomorrow. Even if it doesn’t, Healey proposed a new set of parallels: A “Cyber-Vietnam,” i.e. a...
4 tags
Cybersecurity: Will Federal Regulation Help?
Here is video of yours truly along with Jim Harper and Ryan Radia discussing cybersecurity at a Cato Institute panel on the Hill this past Friday.
3 tags
Richard Clarke on Who Was Behind the Stuxnet Attack
“My greatest fear,” Clarke says, “is that, rather than having a cyber-Pearl Harbor event, we will instead have this death of a thousand cuts. Where we lose our competitiveness by having all of our research and development stolen by the Chinese. And we never really see the single event that makes us do something about it. That it’s always just...
3 tags
NSA Chief Denies Wired’s Domestic Spying Story (Fourteen Times) In Congressional Hearing
Here is video of the exchange. The real story here is how poorly Rep. Hank Johnson handled it. The questions were framed around a joke about Dick Cheney that fell flat and detracted from the seriousness of the issue. Johnson should be embarrassed. Several folks have pointed out that Gen. Alexader got...
2 tags
What’s good for the goose &c.
The Register:
China is claiming attacks on public and private organisations from outside of its borders have rocketed in the past year - from five million computers affected in 2010 to 8.9m in 2011. …
Surprisingly, Japan is alleged to be the source of most attacks on China, supposedly landing 22.8 per cent, followed by the US with 20.4 per...
1 tag
Leverage NSA cyber expertise without monitoring of civilian networks? Declassify malware signatures.
Jason Healy at the Atlantic:
The second problem with mandatory government monitoring is the most obvious and severe. Especially after scandals over warrantless intercepts, NSA has lost a great deal of the public’s trust. Companies, even those that may hold the agency in high regard...
1 tag
What will it take to secure cyberspace?
Tony Busseri knows:
It will take legislation, and laws that accomplish anything meaningful will require a public/private partnership of historical efficiency.
I am holding my breath.
1 tag
On cyberthreat hype and questioning motives
From The Hill this weekend:
But James Lewis, the director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said “no serious analyst doubts the risk anymore” of a cyber attack.
“There are people who are naturally skeptical about anything the government says and there are the ones who are paid to be skeptical,” Lewis...
1 tag
WaPo: U.S. accelerating cyberweapon research
Ellen Nakashima has been doing some excellent reporting on the offensive side of cyber. Some interesting tidbits from this latest piece lend support to Thomas Rid’s thesis that the more destructive a cyberweapon, the more expensive and difficult to build:
[U.S. military officials] estimated that crafting a cyberweapon would have taken about...
2 tags
NSA responds to Wired’s Utah spy center cover story
“We are not going to dissect any particular news story — especially one that relies in part on the speculation of former officials and several unnamed sources,” the NSA statement says. “Those of us who are privileged to be a part of this great institution, NSA, see firsthand that our nation is indeed becoming safer as...
Ouch.
NYT book critic Dwight Garner:
Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law School professor, has written “One Way Forward: The Outsider’s Guide to Fixing the Republic” ($1.99). It’s about how money has ruined politics, and about how Tea Partiers and Occupy Wall Streeters should collaborate to fix this problem. Mr. Lessig is right, but he’s insufferable. His book is earnest, patronizing and so dull...
Why are liberals lending credibility to Russia’s propaganda channel?
Jesse Zwick ponders:
Of course, it isn’t remarkable that eccentrics like [Lawrence] Freeman are willing to appear on the Kremlin-funded station. What is surprising, however, are the number of decidedly non-crazy American experts and journalists who appear regularly on the channel’s news programs as guest analysts....
2 tags
A little sympathy for Mike Daisey, and a silver...
The revelation that the story Mike Daisey told This American Life (and anyone who would listen) is not true, reminds me of the recent literary hit, “The Lifespan of a Fact.” It’s a meta-conversation between a fabulist journalist and his fact-checker about a non-fiction essay that’s not completely accurate. The first sentence conflates several events as having happened on...
3 tags
The Internet's philosopher-king
The cover story of this week’s The New Republic is a review by Evgeny Morozov of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. In 10,000 words it is more illuminating about what made Steve Jobs tick than Isaacson’s 656 pages of warmed-over anecdotes and Wikipedia glosses. Morozov gets it right when he draws the connection between Bauhaus and Apple—functionalism and simplicity...
2 tags
Some interesting questions about LulzSec,...
On my podcast this week I talk to Gabriella Coleman, a McGill University anthropologist who is an expert on Anonymous. We talk about the origins of the movement, about its LulzSec offshoot, and the recent arrests. It’s a fascinating topic and I hope you’ll take a listen. There’s one thing about the investigation, that I find especially fascinating: that the Stratfor breach and...
1 tag
How scary was the White House's cyber simulation...
On Wednesday, administration and military officials simulated a cyber attack for a group of senators in an attempt to show a dire need for cybersecurity legislation. All 100 senators were invited to the simulation, which “demonstrated how the federal government would respond to an attack on the New York City electrical grid during a summer heat wave, according to Senate aides.” Around...
2 tags
Why security professionals love Anonymous
In the past I’ve suggested that Anonymous, given their notoriety, is a convenient bogeyman for those who want to alarm the public about cybersecurity. Gen. Keith Alexander reportedly said in a closed-door briefing that Anonymous may soon acquire the ability to take down the power grid, but he probably knows that’s unlikely, and that the true threat is from foreign militaries. Yet...
2 tags
No NSA monitoring in McCain cyber bill, seems...
After the NSA’s aggressive pursuit of a greater role in civilian cybersecurity, and last week’s statement by Sen. John McCain criticizing the Lieberman-Collins bill for not including a role for the agency, some feared that the new G.O.P. cybersecurity bill would allow the military agency to gather information about U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. So, it’s refreshing to see that the...
