Ready to get your federal computer license?

Sat Aug 29 03:11:21 UTC 2009

I'm trying really hard to find my "paranoia hat", and just to relieve
some boredom I read the entire bill to try to figure out where this was
all coming from....

"(2) may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or
shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal
Government or United States critical infrastructure information system
or network;"

Now, I'm sorry, but that doesn't say anything about shutting down the
entire Internet.  Yes, I understand the idea that since they COULD
possibly deem the entire Internet (that Al Gore created?) a critical
infrastructure, it would seem simple enough to put a provision in to
prevent that.  But IMHO the point is to involve people outside the
government (read the parts on establishing the committee and voting on
rules/regs) as opposed to dictating to them.

And it's no different than it is today for groups that have to connect
to/from particular agencies within the government.  There's already
plenty of rules in place about that.

So if someone hacks the electric grid, does it not make sense to unplug
that portion of the infrastructrure from the Internet until the problem
is fixed?  (e.g. shut down traffic to/from)  I think someone wrote an
article after WAY over-thinking this whole thing and everyone else jumps
on the bandwagon.

So I'm open to hearing about things if I missed them.  Reading Senate
Bills isn't all that exciting, so it's possible I zoned out a bit, but
can someone explain to me where this thought process is coming from? 

Thanks!

Scott

Peter Beckman wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Aug 2009, Hiers, David wrote:
>
>> Governments already license stock brokers, pilots, commercial drivers,
>> accountants, engineers, all sorts of people whose mistakes can be
>> measured in the loss of hundreds of lives and millions of dollars.
>
>  "'The power company allowed their network security to be comprimised
> by a
>   single Windows computer connected to the Internet in the main control
>   facility, so we unplugged the entire Internet to mitigate the attack,'
>   said Senator Rockefeller, the author of the bill that enabled the
>   President to take swift action after an unknown hacker used the
> Internet
>   to break into Brominion Power's main control facility and turn off the
>   power to the entire East Coast.  'It will remain unplugged and
> nobody in
>   the US will be allowed to connect to the Internet until the power is
> back
>   on and this hacker is brought to justice.'
>
>   Authorities are having a difficult time locating the hacker due to the
>   unavailability of the Internet and electricity, and cannot communicate
>   with lawmakers via traditional means due to the outage.  A formal
> request
>   to turn the power and Internet back on was sent on a pony earlier this
>   afternoon to lawmakers in DC."
>
>  Can't wait.
>
> Beckman
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Peter Beckman                                                 
> Internet Guy
> beckman at angryox.com                                
> http://www.angryox.com/
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>