Obama Stimulus Pours Millions Into Cyber Security 156
nandemoari writes "As his administration continues to work on a stimulus plan that can save America's economy, Obama's latest course of action will see millions of dollars being allocated to heighten cyber security. The move will assist government officials in preventing future attacks on the United States.
The President recently addressed his 2010 budget, outlining funding plans that will grant the Department of Homeland Security $355 million to secure the nation's most essential computer systems.
The money will be spent on both government and private groups, with much of the funding going to the National Cyber Security Division and the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative programs."
In other news, "The People's Cube"... (Score:5, Interesting)
...announces the Hope'N'Change Operating System [thepeoplescube.com]. "Only 30% chance of crashing!"
Good. (Score:1, Interesting)
Aside from the obvious benefit of security (see the earlier story re: idiots sharing blueprints on p2p), this will also help stimulate the economy.
I'm no huge fan of Obama, especially with the RIAA lawyers and the wiretapping thing, but spending money is the right idea here. The government is the only entity who can spend money here, so they need to spend it. That's Keynesian economic theory, and it's probably the best theory we have (at least, it's been tested).
The idea is: save money when the market's good, like Clinton managed. Then spend it when the market's bad.
The idea is, any spending is good. Including that grass at the Capitol. And spending it on us nerds helps the tech. industry across the board.
The mission, the people... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5105027.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
So, he knows what he's up against. If you run any sort of port knocker or ssh logging at a target IP range, you know that near round the clock brute forcing is going on by Chinese networks. They now are distributing the problem into botnets to prevent being blackholed, but they continue at it.
Obama has Janet Napolitano to run this group. They will work with US-CERT, but their mandate should be defense, not offense. They could start by approaching the US Tier-1 providers and saying, in essence, we want to use tools from companies like Arbor Networks and others that track botnets to isolate better signatures and reject them at the national perimeter, sort of an IDP at the edge of major networks.
The NSA probably has access to all domestic US websites encryption keys, at least the ones that come from Verisign. So, inspect all encrypted traffic headed back to Chinese networks, on any port. If you can't decrypt it, consider it hostile. Shunt it.
I may get modded down as flamebait, probably by Chinese slashdot readers - but the fact is, we are at war with the Chinese.
Re:Frist (Score:5, Interesting)
It's almost as if they're widening the definition of child porn so they'll have more people to bust.
Call me cynical but I don't think they care about having "more people" to bust. The Man isn't out to get us. The Man is out to generate splashy headlines and get elected to higher office. Nothing generates splasher headlines than "Think of the Children!"
PC? (Score:2, Interesting)
No-one's mentioned the Chinese governments vast expenditure on active (read - aggressive) cybersecurity - is it not PC anymore to say this?
I'm in London UK & all for your US nerds defending our cyber frontiers 'cos we certainly can't! BO rocks!
Re:The mission, the people... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
The government is a very inefficient way to create jobs and most jobs it creates are temporary at best. At worst they can create an artifical job market that when the projects are completed, leads to higher unemployment as people are now trained for jobs that no longer exist.
Buying your way out of a recession, as many, if not most, ecomomist have come forward and said, at best leads to a temporary bump but will more than likely lead to an extended downturn in the economy. Spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave is no way to stimulate the economy; it's just a way to ensure a huge debt load.
That's not to say the government shouldn't play a huge role in the recovery, but they should be background players, creating oppourtunities for small businesses to grow (lower taxes on small/independant business, job grants, etc...).
And as for Keynesian economic theory. It was Keynes himself who suggested that Hoover's tax increases (much the same as Obama's proposed corporate and income tax increase) actually signifigantly lengthened the depression.
Re:Frist (Score:5, Interesting)
Call me cynical but I don't think they care about having "more people" to bust.
I disagree with that point.
They're obviously not catching a lot of terrorists so they need other numbers to justify their budget. They get their numbers by picking the low-hanging fruit after broadening the definition of "low-hanging" fruit, especially if it goes "across state lines", which almost all internet traffic does.
"The Man is out to generate splashy headlines and get elected to higher office. Nothing generates splasher headlines than "Think of the Children!"
True, and it's convenient for both law enforcement seeking bigger budgets and politicians seeking advancement. It's not convenient for your 16 year old son or daughter who has to register as a sex offender for life because they stored nekkid pics of themselves on their cell phone or computer.
Re:DHS? WTF? (Score:2, Interesting)
Bush did this to the Coast Guard. He gave DHS the money, shorted their budget, and then DHS made them an offer they can't refuse. I'll be interested to see if the NSA gets fully funded.
If not, DHS will task the NSA, eventually. That's where all the brains are. If that's what's happening, this is Big Brother coming, fellas. Obama's starting to make me nervous, by supporting this monocultured, centralized structure. I want DHS disbanded and dismantled.
But then again, Tolkien warned us what power does. As Franklin said, "I have given you a Republic if you can keep it." We will have the government we want if we don't "keep it."
Politics matters.
Re:DHS? WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
But then again, Tolkien warned us what power does.
Enlighten us. How did Tolkien warn us about power?
I think a fitting quote, from John Dalberg, Baron of Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."
Re:DHS? WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
This smells of political back-scratching, not a solution to a problem.
That smell...that's the smell of shit. And napalm burning. Oh dear...is our country on fire? I say...we better go smother it with these exceedingly flammable dollars!
so obama did in 30 days what it took dubya three years to do and we're still hearing more about what michelle is wearing on any particular day than where the stimulus money is going. it's going to be a fun next 10 years or more...
Took W a little more than 3 years to blow $2x10^12. He got started with eroding civil liberties about a year in, though.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Frist (Score:4, Interesting)
Did any of you even read the summary? Does anyone here even know the jurisdiction of the department of homeland security? Just to clarify something for any of you presumptuous douche bags, this has to do with the Slashdot articles that you have read (assuming you've even looked at the title) that involve China and highly sensitive US data gone missing. This is to protect that data and any intrusion that could happen in the future. Quite frankly, it's embarrassing that anyone managed to get a hold of that data, and it better not happen on this president's watch.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, so do you REALLY think that Obama and ilk DON'T KNOW THAT???
Of course they know that. What better way to solidify power and wealth that to continue the problem? The stimulus bill was the perfect way to embed cool stuff like Electronic Medical Records (which was the real goal) the enable more government. Not to mention gaining 36% of Citibank.
Problem is this however, IF you let the economic pain go on too long, people are liable to start screaming for your beheading on public TV. Ukraine today is on the verge of major riots, they want ALL of their government and banks exiled.
Thialand wants the same thing last week. They had the best quote of the week: "This government is full of robbers!"
So in 18 months they will reimplement Reaganomics (and call it something else, Pelosiomics?).
Re:Weak Postulate (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea is that we have underutilized resources that need to be employed in order to maximize our current capacity.
What if we have too much capacity right now? Perhaps that capacity should be eradicated. Do we need as many car companies, financial firms, etc. as we do now? Only the market knows. Perhaps the stimulus will only maintain corporations that should downsize or go out of business.
It's like my college loan. I couldn't afford college so I took out a loan. Then once I used my college education to get me a nice paying job I payed it back in 6 months
That works if the benefits of the loan outweigh the costs. If for example, you took out a loan for an art degree, you may never make enough to pay it back.
My viewpoint is that the costs of the stimulus will be outweighed by the cost of future growth due to increased taxes.
The experience of Japan's Lost Decade shows that often government stimulus costs are not worth their benefits. It takes a lot of faith to believe that government (whose incentives are getting campaign donations and votes) is going to invest more wisely than the market (whose incentive is to actually make money).
There may be cases where government is the only practical solution due to transaction costs (such as grabbing land for road building, national defense, police, monetary policy through the Federal Reserve), but in terms of industrial investment government is on an equal footing with the global market of investors.
Re:Frist (Score:3, Interesting)
America has gone crazy over the sex crimes issue.
There is one city in Palm Beach County, Fl. that has restricted the areas in which sex offenders can live so severely that every offender in the city lives under the same bridge. That is the only spot that is more than 1500 ft. from a school in the entire city. But controlling where offenders live has not helped reduce sex crimes even by a fraction of one per cent.
Re:Frist (Score:2, Interesting)
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against--then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it.
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone?
But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted--and you create a nation of law-breakers--and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."