Cyber threats
UPDATE: Fixed missing link
I agree with her basic point: technology is outpacing law and doctrine (and enforcement capability of those, although she doesn’t explicitly reference that). And I think you could apply that to a number of fields beyond just “cyber activity”.
However, I think largely she’s coming at this from a legislative perspective (not to fault her, it just is what it is and she was in the legislative branch for a number of years). A few points:
1. The capability and “clearing house” of cyber events is already in place and has been since at least the late 1990s. I don’t know where she’s been but the CERT/CC (technically, not an acronym, they are the first computer security incident response team) based out of Carnegie-Mellon and now (since 2003) the US CERT supports this coordination. They collect information about incidents, publish threat warnings, etc. They do this in conjunction with vendors for computer and network defense products (firewalls, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, virus-scanning, etc.)
2. While it’s never going to be spelled out for reasons that should be obvious, but that I’ll point out some of below, her second point is already happening. Even Wiki has some of it: (Bush’s NSPD 54).
3. Her third point (commonly referred to in the business as “critical infrastructure”) is already known, so her statements are neither new nor compelling. This is a known issue – some of which prompted NSPD 54.
She’s right on the money in her first point and some people get that, but likely not enough and not the right ones. She’s also correct in that we need better collaboration on this front. However, calling it out, detailing the plans for it and how it works in the press isn’t the way to do it. It should remain close-held to protect it. That would be one more layer of defense that the enemy would have to penetrate. Of course, we could always just put up some warning signs but as we’ve seen, that’s old school to your Gormogons.
P.S. The following message was picked up on our networks bound for the Czar and Mandarin: 34:30:34:20:2d:20:70:61:67:65:20:6e:6f:74:20:66:6f:75:6e:64:20:2d:20:45:61:72:74:68:20:74:65:72:6d:69:6e:61:74:69:6f:6e:20:62:65:67:69:6e:73
GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.