Cyberattacks: Can Google -- or Uncle Sam -- protect you?

[Commentary] Who can do a better job of protecting us from cyberthreats: private companies like Google, or Uncle Sam?

This was the question discussed at a recent event hosted by the Center for National Policy in Washington. It was one of those seminars that should have been attended by everyone who conducts business online. The views of the two experts on hand - Doug Raymond of Google and Rob Knake of the Council on Foreign Relations - echo the debate in Washington over regulating banks and Wall Street. And the stakes of a cybersecurity crisis are just as high as a financial crisis, if not higher. Clearly, there are legitimate rights and privacy concerns if the government partners with Internet providers. And it's fair to ask how long it would be before we end up with government surveillance and monitoring of all American Web traffic. But foreign governments in league with foreign hackers already are exploiting that vulnerability. Russia, China, and even some European governments are bigger players on the Net than Washington. Our current cyberinsecurity, left only to private Internet firms, is rendering American businesses victims of vast industrial espionage unlike anything we have previously experienced.