December 2010

How to Fight and Win the Cyberwar

[Commentary] The United States has done little to enhance the safety of the networks that bolster our economy. We urgently need to develop defensive software to protect these networks and create impermeable barriers to the profusion of malware. Network convergence -- transporting all communications over a common network structure -- increases the opportunities for and the consequences of disruptive cyberattacks.

Hackers and cyberwarriors are constantly devising new ways to trick systems. We should think of cyberattacks as guided missiles and respond similarly -- intercept them and retaliate. This means we need a federal agency dedicated to defending our various networks. You cannot expect the private sector to know how -- or to have the money -- to defend against a nation-state attack in a cyberwar. One suggestion recommended by former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke is that the our government create a Cyber Defense Administration. He's right. Clearly, defending the U.S. from cyberattacks should be one of our prime strategic objectives. Few nations have used computer networks as extensively as we have to control electric power grids, airlines, railroads, banking and military support. Few nations have more of these essential systems owned and operated by private enterprise. As with 9/11, we do not enjoy the luxury of a dilatory response.

[Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report]

US agencies migrating to Web

The General Services Administration's decision last week to move its e-mail program to a Web-based system modeled on Google's popular Gmail program is part of a major government drive to increase federal use of cloud computing.

The GSA is the first federal agency to make the Internet switch, and its decision follows the Office of Management and Budget's declaration last month that the government is now operating under a "cloud-first" policy, meaning agencies must give priority to Web-based applications and services. Government information-technology contractors, many of them based in the Washington area, have been anticipating the shift for months, trying to position themselves for future work. The Obama administration has said that cloud computing will allow more people to share a common infrastructure, cutting technology and support costs. But some technologists have warned that Web-based software may not be as secure as systems built for a dedicated purpose. And the programs often depend on stable network connections. The push for Web-based computing is part of a broader government effort to consolidate its 2,100 data centers by at least 40 percent by 2015.

Concern raised over health record database

An Office of Personnel Management plan to launch a comprehensive database of federal workers' health-care records has raised the ire of some privacy advocates, employee unions and consumer groups.

The OPM is organizing a research database of insurance claims filed by the 8 million workers and dependents enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, as well as participants in two other federally administered programs. The claims data, which will be supplied by the private insurers that participate in the FEHBP, will help the OPM figure out ways to lower costs, improve quality and fight fraud, the agency has said. But critics - including the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumers Union and the American Federation of Government Employees - argue that the government should avoid setting up a repository of sensitive information that could be vulnerable to privacy breaches. At minimum, they say, the OPM should provide more information about how the database, the Health Claims Data Warehouse, will work and who will have access to it.

WikiLeaks site off-limits to federal workers

Obama administration officials reminded rank-and-file federal workers and contractors late Friday to steer clear of WikiLeaks, the controversial document-sharing Web site. "Classified information, whether or not already posted on public Web sites or disclosed to the media, remains classified, and must be treated as such by federal employees and contractors, until it is declassified by an appropriate U.S. government authority," officials warned.

The Office of Management and Budget sent the message in a memo addressed to agency general counsel, asking them to remind workers of existing restrictions on access to classified documents. OMB Director Jacob Lew had already instructed departments and agencies to ensure that employees with access to classified information networks did not have more access than necessary and to restrict the use of removable media such as CDs or flash drives on such networks. Those orders prompted some departments to issue warnings to employees.

Undercut by Microsoft, Russia Drops Piracy Case

The authorities have dismissed software piracy charges against one of Russia’s most well-known environmental groups after Microsoft indicated that it would no longer support the case.

The police in the Siberian city of Irkutsk raided the offices of the group, Baikal Environmental Wave, in January and confiscated 12 computers, all but paralyzing its operations. Investigators said they believed that Baikal Wave had unlicensed Microsoft software on its computers, but the environmentalists said the motivation was entirely political. The authorities dropped the charges after The New York Times published an extensive account of the case on Sept. 12 that prompted Microsoft to overhaul its policies in Russia.

Vast Hacking by a China Fearful of the Web

As China ratcheted up the pressure on Google to censor its Internet searches last year, the American Embassy sent a secret cable to Washington detailing one reason top Chinese leaders had become so obsessed with the Internet search company: they were Googling themselves. The May 18, 2009, cable, titled “Google China Paying Price for Resisting Censorship,” quoted a well-placed source as saying that Li Changchun, a member of China’s top ruling body, the Politburo Standing Committee, and the country’s senior propaganda official, was taken aback to discover that he could conduct Chinese-language searches on Google’s main international Web site. When Mr. Li typed his name into the search engine at google.com, he found “results critical of him.” That cable from American diplomats was one of many made public by WikiLeaks that portray China’s leadership as nearly obsessed with the threat posed by the Internet to their grip on power — and, the reverse, by the opportunities it offered them, through hacking, to obtain secrets stored in computers of its rivals, especially the United States. Extensive hacking operations suspected of originating in China, including one leveled at Google, are a central theme in the cables. The operations began earlier and were aimed at a wider array of American government and military data than generally known, including on the computers of United States diplomats involved in climate change talks with China.

A Silicon Bubble Shows Signs Of Reinflating

Less than a decade after the dot-com bust taught Wall Street and Silicon Valley investors that what goes up does not keep going up forever, a growing number of entrepreneurs and a few venture capitalists are beginning to wonder if investments in tech start-ups are headed toward another big bust.

The chief evidence, according to industry experts and analysts, is the way venture capitalists and established companies are clamoring to give money to young companies, including those with only a shred of an idea. They are piling into me-too start-ups that imitate popular Web companies that already received financing. Companies that involve social shopping, mobile photo sharing and new social networking are finding it easy to attract investors because no one wants to miss the next big thing.

Groupon Said to Reject Google’s Offer

Groupon has walked away from Google’s $6 billion takeover offer. The rejection at least temporarily thwarts Google’s efforts to buy the social buying site, which would have been its largest acquisition to date. Options for Groupon include the possibility of staying independent but securing a significant investment, as its rival LivingSocial did by accepting $175 million from Amazon this week. Groupon’s chief executive and founder, Andrew Mason, has also expressed his interest in taking the company public with a share offering.

Google to buy anti-piracy software firm Widevine

Google has agreed to buy Seattle-based anti-piracy software firm Widevine in a bid to boost its online video services. No price was disclosed, but the software firm has raised more than $65 million from investors including Cisco Systems. Widevine's digital-rights management software is used by 250 million Web-connected TVs and other Web-connected devices to protect video content from unauthorized use.

Why No One's Happy With The FCC's Network Neutrality

On Dec 1, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski sketched out the rules that he said would ensure that broadband providers treat all of the data on their networks equally — an idea known as network neutrality.

But some public interest groups have seen a few more details than Chairman Genachowski announced. They say the proposed rules are net neutrality in name only. "What you have is a lot of consumer groups coming out and looking at this and saying this is a real nightmare," Sascha Meinrath says. Meinrath is with the New America Foundation, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. He says the proposed rules are full of loopholes. For one thing, they would allow broadband providers to offer faster service to some companies — for a price. "These rules could end up allowing companies to pick and choose the services and applications and even content that we are allowed to see online," Meinrath says. "What it does is it gives legal protection for discriminatory behavior." Maybe the biggest loophole, Meinrath says, is that the rules would exempt wireless networks from much of the regulation governing the old-fashioned, wired Internet. The wireless companies argue that they need the flexibility to manage traffic on their networks so that a few users can't hog all the bandwidth. Those companies — particularly AT&T — offered lukewarm support for the proposed FCC rules. But Verizon's Link Hoewing still thinks it's Congress, not the FCC, that should be setting policy for the Internet.

Benton

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