April 7, 2009

Like this is going to go over well...

From Network World:
Yet another government attempt at cybersecurity
The timing of two cybersecurity bills just introduced by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) seems a bit funny. It is not so much that they were introduced on April Fools� Day; more importantly, they were introduced before the widespread review of U.S. cybersecurity ordered by President Obama is completed by Melissa Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils.

It would seem to make more sense to wait and see what Hathaway thinks is broken before submitting bills to fix it. While I expect that the bills will be changed when Hathaway reports her findings in a few weeks, the current bills are interesting and have the potential to impact just about everyone in the network or network security business.
A bit more:
There has been some controversy over two provisions in S 773. One provision that would empower the president to declare a "cybersecurity emergency" and shut down government networks and maybe even parts of the public Internet. The other provision says that the Secretary of Commerce "shall have access to all relevant data concerning such networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." Some pendants have read this to mean that the government could wiretap any Internet communications but the drafters could have just meant that a network could not hide its design or performance from the government. This will have to be clarified during the legislative process.
Fscking idiots. Posted by DaveH at April 7, 2009 11:56 AM
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