Regardless of what you think…
… about Louis Freeh 
, who was the director of the FBI from 1993 to 2001, Freeh was caught saying some very intelligent things today concerning the potential for centralization of governmental cybersecurity in the hands of the NSA, namely, that the responsibility should be left to a consortium of governmental and industrial partners and NOT concentrated in a single organization. Freeh cited the uncertainty over immunity for telecommunications companies who illegally open their networks to the NSA (e.g., at Folsom Street in San Francisco).
Freeh said that so far, not enough emphasis has been placed on the need to ensure privacy in cybersecurity efforts. (Amazing….)
I recently blogged about the resignation (effective tomorrow) of Rod Beckström, who was director of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) over attempts at control, by the NSA, of the DHS cybersecurity efforts.
Yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that she has appointed Philip Reitinger (a Microsoft executive) to be deputy undersecretary for the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate, where he is responsible for protecting information security infrastructure. The National Protection and Programs Directorate has jurisdiction over the NCSC, where Beckström resigned.
Although Napolitano’s appointment of Reitinger scares the heck out of me (I actually read!), I have to admit that there is a lot of Microsoft “stuff” out there, and Reitinger must already have vast experience with “vulnerabilities.”
Meanwhile, the BBC purchased a low-value botnet (of 22,000 infected computers) (I looked to see whether the computers were all running Windows, but BBC did not specify – you would think that they might want to help their viewers) to show the dangers of botnets to PCs by sending thousands of spam messages in a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS).
-Bill at Cheshire Cat Photo™
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