Bush Cyber Initiative Aims To Monitor, Restrict Access To Federal Network

dstates writes "Details of George Bush's Cyber Initiative are beginning to trickle out. The Cyber Initiative was created in January to secure government against electronic attacks. Newsweek says that over the next seven years, Bush's Cyber Initiative will spend as much as $30 billion to create a new monitoring system for all federal networks, a combined project of the DHS, the NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The U.S. government has launched a classified operation called Byzantine Foothold to detect, track, and disarm intrusions on the government's most critical networks. ComputerWorld reports that all data traffic flowing through agency networks will be checked, and that it will be inspected at a deeper level than the current system is capable of. BusinessWeek, meanwhile, reports that one requirement is to reduce the number of internet access points in the Federal Government from the thousands now in use to only 100 sites by June 2008. How this will impact public information resources such as the Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine or even the US Congress remains to be seen."

Re:$30 billion?

[Lookin4Trouble]

Are they really itemizing hammers for $300, toilet seats for $1000? Are government contractors just taking us to the cleaners?

*sigh* Thou shalt not feed the trolls

No. The whole myth of $300 hammers and $1000 toilet seats came from a model of contract purchasing that's been out of use since the 1980s. That contract may have 300 hammers ($5 apiece) and one jet engine ($150,000), but the total cost of the contract ($151,500) gets spread across each item on the contract, so it shows up as (Quantity: 300, Hammer, $505 ea., Quantity: 1, Jet Engine, $505 ea.)

Re:$30 billion?

[rbannon]

Why does the public not have any say in where this money goes?

The public does have a say. Stop voting jackasses to power.

We're beyond voting. At best, let's hope we're invaded by the next America to help puts us back on our feet.

Re:SlashBias

[Iridium_Hack]

I mostly agree - But wonder if another part of this will end out allowing Greater Penetration of the Internet public networks even as it limits access to the government ones. After all, if you have rights and abilities to break into networks in the public domain but never have to be concerned about the public breaking into yours, do as you wish. . . life is good! And no one will ever find out what you're doing.

If they really cared about doing it right, it wouldn't always be a one-sided standard protecting only government privacy. IMHO, they should also be pushing for internet privacy laws and security while going for the Federal Network.

Guess we'll know more as more comes out. .

My sig

Re:$30 billion?

[Kingrames]

On the contrary, if the jackass party had been elected in 2000, we wouldn't have these problems.