Monday, March 17, 2008

State of the Media

This is more of an opinion blog than anything else. However, if I have noticed any trend during all the research I have done for this class, it is one of utter silence from the US Media. I have no fondness for media to begin with, but the complete lack of coverage for cyber attacks, theft, vandalism, and open hostilities is appalling. I would imagine that an attack on our government's nexus of military control would get a little more attention. And of widespread attacks on financial institutions? 30 second blip in the morning news.

Granted, some news agencies do have a section on information security, but I don't believe they are doing enough to make the public aware at just how vulnerable the country's financial and defense data is. I believe that more public knowledge would lead to outrage, not panic, and that congress would be forced to step up funding, and follow Bush's lead to strengthen our data and networks from cyber criminals.

2 comments:

Jinxey said...

What got me about the whole article was his non-chalant attitude towards it.

The fact that 800 computers being taken off line was not only planned for but executed flawlessly without any hiccup gave me the jibblies.

Cyber wars are a touchy area - that share a lot of the same beef with intellectual property in that it's individuals versus a country (well, most of the time).

You know me, I'm a total hippy and would love for a global commune so we can all agree and work on bagging these guys efficiently :P.

I hear there's a lot of problem of countries finding dangerous hackers but not being able to pursue them, is that true?

Hope your well-
-B

Unknown said...

Yes, it is true. While cyber crime in the US rates worse than Rape, armed robbery, assault, and most everything else short of murder and tax evasion, we fall grievously short when defend from outside sources.

While we do occasionally work to bring high profile criminals to justice in other countries, those people who spam us with bogus emails and siphon banks electronically are allowed to roam free.

There is the notion of blacklisting DNS lists and IP blocks from the Eastern Block, most Asian countries, Russia, most of Africa, some countries in South America, and Germany, most are opposed to this idea. Unlike conventional warfare, which can only be proven and won through actual combat and human loss, electronic warfare on a network level would involve the US cutting the DNS lines that foreign countries are currently renting, then denying IP reservations for them.

The next step would be to set up a universal filter (much like the Great Firewall of China) to weed out any illicit addresses. After much time (grovelling?) and money, blacklisted countries could rent one line, which is closely monitored for several years before a broadband or mesh network is allowed again.