Obama and his 'Cyber Czar'

[Fred Wilson]

What do you guys think?

Is he going to try to be in OUR networks too? If it's only for securing the gov't networks, I'm all for it, but when they start talking about private networks, I think bad things about the NSA.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/29...-czar-position/

[Brian Sierakowski]

My understanding is that this czar is just for the government and infrastructure. This comes after they realized that electrical grids were a) extremely easy to get in to, and B) we lack enough people with the fundamental knowledge of how these systems work, IE people that could lock down security :).

He can feel free to audit my network if he'd like.

[h3%5kr3w]

hell yah, i'd be like hey man how's it going? want a beer? :P

I do get this strange feeling this thread is going to turn into one of those "if you have nothing to hide than what is the problem" vs. "right to privacy" threads....

[dr0p]

I read the official document from the whitehouse on the matter, and it doesn't mention the government having control over the private sector at all, only that the government and private sector should work together to secure the national cyber infrastructure. Seems okay to me as long as they don't add any clauses that would allow the government to actually control the pirvate sector in any way.

[digip]

<sarcasm>In Soviet Russia, all networks are the Governments networks. In Soviet Russia, you are the network. Would you like a roll of toilet paper? Only when governmnet has toilet paper, do you get to wipe your ass.</sarcasm>

I love how Fox uses the word Czar, like as if we're some communist state run country or something. "Oh, you know all those democrats are commies ready to trample on our rights."

I'm just curiuous where the term "cyber czar" first originated, as I see a lot of the news agencies using the term these days, but the first tiem I ever heard it was from Fox News. I've only ever heard Obama call it the "Cyber Security Coordinator". The use of the word czar implies some other meaning, but I'm not exactly sure if some use it just because they hear it from others, or if some use it out of anger.

--ok, on to the real issues--

If the government wants to tap your line, they will. Simple as that, but I highly doubt they will be sitting there looking through everyones traffic. There aren't enough people or physical computer resources to sift through all that porn data. But they do need to implement better standards government wide, and that will be one step to help close in on these threats.

I think we (as in we on the forums and inthe hacker/security community) all know too well the dangers of the inernet and computer crimes. I for one would like to see them step up security at the government level, as we often hear about people losing laptops, USB devices and HDD's with sensitive information, the pentagon getting hacked(over dial up even - go figure). The recent hacks of peoples insurance information is one place that would benefit from better education on cyber security, and it should start with the government and work its way down, but that has nothing to do with sniffing citizen traffic, it has to do with securing the networks against real electronic threats, such as breakins, identity theft, malware, etc. It seems we are in the stone age at the government level to some respect, and the fact that he is addressing the issues we all know exist is one that I applaud him for.

We need to have our people educated and as smart as any cyber criminal, because they will use whatever means neccesary to attack a government. Imagine if terrorists were to focus more on cyber threats than physical suicide bombings, we would probably be in a lot worst shape today, not just here, but globally.

I imagine this would also create more jobs for IT Security proffesionals in the government sector, as they are going to need a new approach and fresh minds who have first hand knowledge of what goes on out there.