Category: Computer/online security

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NSA To Monitor Critical Computer Networks Looking For Imperfect Citizens

Civil Society, Commerce, Computer/online security, Corporations, Cyberscams, malware, spam, Government, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
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(IEEE Spectrum) By: Robert Charette // Thu, July 08, 2010

There is a story in the Wall Street Journal about a new, $100+ million, classified program being run out of the National Security Agency (NSA) that will monitor critical commercial and government infrastructure systems such as electricity grids, nuclear power plants, air traffic control systems and the like in order to detect cyber attacks.

Dubbed “Perfect Citizen,” the NSA hopes the program will hep it fill in what the WSJ calls the “big, glaring holes” in knowledge about exactly how massive, coordinated cyber attacks might negatively affect the US.

The Journal story goes on to quote from an internal email from US defense contractor Raytheon, the program's prime contractor, as saying:

“The overall purpose of the [program] is our Government…feel[s] that they need to insure the Public Sector is doing all they can to secure Infrastructure critical to our National Security.”

“Perfect Citizen is Big Brother.”

Full article here

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Journal: Regurgitated Pablum from David Ignatius

06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Commercial Intelligence, Computer/online security, Government, IO Secrets, Law Enforcement, Mobile

Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Washington Post  July 4, 2010 Pg. 19

Keystroke Spies

By David Ignatius

The alleged Russian spy ring is a pleasant summer distraction (Anna Chapman — call your agent!) and a wonderful opportunity to use the phrase femme fatale. But if you want to ponder a 21st-century intelligence puzzle this July 4 weekend, turn your attention to cyber-espionage — where our adversaries can steal in a few seconds what it took an old-fashioned spy network years to collect.

First, though, let's think about what the Russian “illegals” were up to in their suburban spy nests. U.S. intelligence officials think it's partly that the Russians just love running illegal networks. This has been part of their tradecraft since the 1920s, and it enabled many of their most brilliant operations, from Rudolf Abel to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The FBI finds it hard to break its cultural habits, and so does Russia's intelligence service, the SVR.

FULL STORY ONLINE

See Also: Neil Stephenson in SNOWCRASH (first edition late 1980's),

Winn Schwartau in Terminal Compromise: Computer Terrorism is a Networked Society and then in INFORMATION WARFARE: Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway (early 1990's), and

top observers in 1994 in a Memorandum to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) “czar.”

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Event: 30 Jun, 2010 OpenNet Initiative (ONI) Global Summit–Should Cyberspace be Secured as an Open Commons?

Civil Society, Computer/online security, Government, Media, Open Government, Policy
Event page registration

The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) 2010 Global Summit will convene three high-level panels of experts and practitioners on prominent topics related to cyberspace governance, security, and advocacy. The three panels will be organized as informal “talk show” or “Davos” style format: an active moderator, questions and answers from the audience, and high-level exchanges among the panelists and the audience (as opposed to formal presentations and Q&As;).
The panels will be open to the public and recorded for subsequent podcast.
The summit follows directly on the 2010 OpenNet Initiative Workshop held at Mont-Tremblant June 28-29, which will bring together the regional ONI Commonwealth of Independent States (Opennet.Eurasia) and Opennet.Asia networks. Both these networks will be present at the summit on June 30th.

EVENT DETAILS:

The OpenNet Initiative-2010 Global Summit/L'Initiative OpenNet-Sommet
Mondial 2010

Should Cyberspace be Secured as an Open Commons?
Le Cyberspace—faut-il défendre l’universalité de ce bien commun?

Victoria Hall (Old City Hall) 111 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
June 30, 2010
9:30 AM – 4:30 PM

Panelists and participants:
Panélistes et les participants:

BBC, Google, United States Department of State, National Endowment of
Democracy, United States Broadcasting Board of Governors,
International Development Research Centre, Department of Foreign
Affairs and International Trade, Canada, Public Safety Canada, Bell
Canada, Sesawe, Psiphon Inc, Opennet.Asia, Opennet.Eurasia, and more….

Moderator:
Modérateur:
Jesse Brown (Search Engine)

4:30 PM – 6:30 PM

Cocktail Reception/Réception avec hors d'œuvres

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Journal: Google Wants You….In Every Way, Forever

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Computer/online security, Corporations, Corruption, Cyberscams, malware, spam, InfoOps (IO), Misinformation & Propaganda, Mobile, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Privacy, Real Time, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Technologies, Tools

Prevent web malware and enforce policies for all users

Google Web Security for Enterprise, protects organizations of all sizes against web malware attacks and enables the safe, productive use of the web, without incurring hardware, upfront capital, or IT management costs.

Simple to deploy, effortless to maintain, scalable and secure

  • No hardware to install or maintain, just a simple change to your firewall or proxy
  • Proactively blocks web malware before it reaches your network
  • Integrates easily with directory services for granular enforcement and reporting
  • Extends to all employees wherever they are working – at home, in a hotel room, café, client premises, or Wi-Fi spot

Interested in learning more? Download these resources

Comment:  You were right. I've just learned about Google's Endgame. I'm sure it's been out a while, but when I saw this, I immediately thought of your statement about Google wanting to BECOME the Internet. The short video tells all.  REDACTED

Phi Beta Iota:  see also these posts.

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Reference: Joe Nye on Cyber-Power

Computer/online security, Cyberscams, malware, spam, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), White Papers
 
 

Download PDF 1.1MB 30 pages

Nye, Joseph S. “Cyber Power.” Paper (30 Pages)

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School,

May 2010

Power depends upon context, and the rapid growth of cyber space is an important new context in world politics. The low price of entry, anonymity, and asymmetries in vulnerability means that smaller actors have more capacity to exercise hard and soft power in cyberspace than in many more traditional domains of world politics. Changes in information has always had an important impact on power, but the cyber domain is both a new and a volatile manmade environment. The characteristics of cyberspace reduce some of the power differentials among actors, and thus provide a good example of the diffusion of power that typifies global politics in this century. The largest powers are unlikely to be able to dominate this domain as much as they have others like sea or air. But cyberspace also illustrates the point that diffusion of power does not mean equality of power or the replacement of governments as the most powerful actors in world politics.

DOWNLOAD PDF (30 pages, 1.1 MB) from Harvard Site

Phi Beta Iota:  The author served as deputy director of the National Intelligence Council and as an Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.  He coined the term “soft power” and is arguably the most astute and coherent observer and analyst of traditional relations among nations now serving in the upper ranks of the elite that pupport to be serving the public interest.

Comments:

Continue reading “Reference: Joe Nye on Cyber-Power”

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Reference: Strategic Asymmetry–with Comment

Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Collaboration Zones, Collective Intelligence, Computer/online security, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, Geospatial, History, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), International Aid, Key Players, Policies, Policy, Reform, Research resources, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools, True Cost
Full Source Online

Dr. Steve Metz was published on this topic by the Military Review in July-August 2001.  A great deal of original thinking came out of the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) in the aftermath of the 1998 Army Strategy Conference, and sadly, none of it has gained any traction with any Secretary of Defense (or State) since then.  Should Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) actually be selected to be the new Director of National Intelligence (DNI), this is a concept he is going to have to integrate into his thinking.

Although Dr. Metz fully understands the asymmetry of will and touches on the asymmetry of morale, he does not address the core intelligence question of our century: the asymmetry of morality.  Will & Ariel Durant understood this and highlighted the strategic value of being “in the right” in their capstone work, The Lessons of History.  Others, including Buckminster Fuller in Critical Path and Dr. Robert Ackoff (see first link below), understood that context matters, and within context, morality and doing the right thing.

Morale is not the same as moral, and the “collateral advantage” that allows one to harness the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth–to receive unsolicited warnings large and small, to receive unsolicited good ideas large and small–comes ONLY when one holds the moral high ground.  It merits stressing that CONSENSUS is most easily achieved when those striving to achieve consensus share a common faith in integrity–in morality.

America is in the wrong today, because the US Government is imposing on both the domestic public and on humanity at large the wrong policies, the wrong programs, and the wrong acquisitions–as well as the wrong distribution of US taxpayer funds in the service of dictators, cartel leaders, and predatory immoral banks and businesses not at all interested in earning legal ethical profit fully compliant with true cost economics also known as the triple bottom line.

If the next DNI is to be successful, they must:

Continue reading “Reference: Strategic Asymmetry–with Comment”