Cybersecurity Act of 2009

I had started to write a thing smashing the Bill until I read it. I think your interpretation is a little off. Here's a link to the full bill

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s773/text

It's really not a bad bill. They're forming a council to address some cybersecurity problems that they are afraid might plague our networks. They want to make sure that the important corporations have their data and data transfer streams protected.

There are some grants to businesses that are at supposedly at the forefront of developing new software for security. There are also some scholarships for schools teaching good cybersecurity classes. They also were going to fund some competitions for building secure connections. I hear that Japan does this (there was a bit of a splash once about people not liking a "hacking" competition).

The bill as a whole is just trying to find ways to secure the Internet and better protect it from outside attack. A little paranoid probably but far from a major encroachment.

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The only really bad part is the one letting the President effectively declare marshal law on a segment of the Internet. That's a bit far reaching and probably has more to do with old Rockfeller not understanding the sheer reach of the Internet and just how hard it would be to just shut part of it down (you'd have to knock out all the backbone servers in America). I expect that the Commerce department will explain that at some point.

At the moment they are apparently on hold waiting for Obama's 60 day project to examine Internet security to wrap up and report.

I thought this analysis was pretty good. http://gcn.com/articles/2009/04/20/cybereye-security-bill.aspx

It seemed to sum up the bill fairly well for those who don't want to dig through the fairly dense bill.

I have only read a few reviews of the bill from different writers and while I can understand the necessity of protecting US infrastructure, the bill allows control without restrictions. The criteria for a "critical" network is not defined, but left up to the President. The same is true for a "crisis". Thus the internet can be turned off or monitored simply by the president without review.

How would you feel about that if Richard Nixon and his people were in the White House? Would you rest easy that the rule would not be bent or broken for their personal ends, justified by their vision of necessity?

I do see the requirement to protect the USA's interests, even to the extent of intruding into the private sector. The discovery of hacks into the computer systems that control the electrical power grid was a serious wake up call. No country can allow that sort of intrusion to go undefended. But there has to be limits and reviews upon it.

I do see the requirement to protect the USA's interests, even to the extent of intruding into the private sector. The discovery of hacks into the computer systems that control the electrical power grid was a serious wake up call. No country can allow that sort of intrusion to go undefended. But there has to be limits and reviews upon it.

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That's basically the crux of the issue. We are afraid that there might be some serious issues with cyberspace security. They want to form a committee to figure out if these problems exist, and if so, what would be the best means to fix them.

I really think the whole thing about them shutting down the Internet is just a matter of a bunch of old guys not understanding it. It would be really hard to take down any portion of the Internet (and we'd fight like heck anyway).

The idea is simple though. If some hacker is taking over the entire power grid, they want the president to be able to lock things down. I'm not even sure if that's possible. Again, they have to be able to knock out backbone servers, and even then it would be tricky to eliminate some private server farm somewhere.

This is no different than a governor being able to declare a state of emergency. Just because something is open to abuse doesn't mean that it will be.

Remember that the bill was just introduced. It will probably be revised soon as it works its way through councils and has more analysis. It might also just be pigeon holed. There are a lot of bad bills that are introduced. Doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Also, MYP, it seems like they are respecting the success of the private market. They want to give the effective guys more incentives to work and ensure a steady flow of skilled people working through the ranks.

The only real meddling would be ensuring that company's stayed up to date on protecting their databases. That would only come into play if the council felt that there was a serious problem in the way things are going now.

It's a little paranoid, but it sounded like some people made convincing testimony about how vulnerable our cyberspace was. I don't think that's necessarily true (we haven't had a major crisis in years...even then it's usually do to human error and not any real weakness in the system). It just seems like they want to have a council get together and make sure that all the holes are closed and the government systems are secure.

Not a terrible bill. Probably not needed, but not terrible.

I wonder whether this is part of that age-old tactic of Government to take part in where the action is, ultimately controlling the Internet. I.e. their tactic is usually to put fear into people so that they would be more ameniable for policing and control. And then soon after we would probably have a new Government Department called Department of Internet, and then after that tax after tax after tax, where people who have ID's on the Internet will have to subscribe in order to be part of the Internet.

I would rather submit myself to the dangers on the Internet any day, than to get Government interference and logical consequences of Government interference.

Guys...I think you're being a bit paranoid. It's a bill by one guys suggesting that we make sure that the Internet is properly guarded. They are mainly just forming an advisory council and providing more incentives for people to study cyberspace security technology. That's actually the heart of the actual bill (read the link I posted).

Besides, they have these laws in other countries. They just passed one in Sweden. They didn't exactly lose their freedom.

So to what extent is this going to have an effect on pirated films, music, software etc. It seems to me like this is going to be another way to basically gather information on everyone. Of course they always say "this is about security and it's for your own good", but something tells me that governments don't always have their people's best interest at heart.

This isn't really an attempt to control the media though. They are trying to protect the commercial side of the Internet (specifically, they are investigating reports that say that it is vulnerable to attack...chances are that the council will just say that private enterprise has sufficiently protected it...yada, yada, yada).

They already have a good bit of power to censorship speech. They have the same power as they would to regulate television. Again...Sweden does this and I believe Japan does too. They have a well regulated Internet system. That's it. Australia tried to regulate it and ran into a wall for the most part. It's already on its way out.

I wouldn't worry about this at all. Obama is seemingly supportive of net neutrality so if there's even a hint of censorship it will not be passed.

Delta - I don't think they would play cloak and dagger about piracy. They'd just pass a bill stating that we're cracking down on this by catching IP addresses. Again...that's why I know about Sweden's Internet regulation. They just added something that made it harder for the average Joe to pirate things...and passed it as the bill to make it harder to pirate stuff (passed not too long before The Pirate Bay bit the dust).

I agree that the idea of shutting down just a part of the internet is a bit naive. If you were to shut down the internet to protect, as suggested, against a threat to the power grid, you would have a disastrous impact on some of the other areas you need to protect. What would happen to the stock market if no internet trades could get to brokers? Internet availablity is critical to the way the world functions now.

I think it is encouraging that the problem is at least being looked at.

I don't understand the comment about copyright infringement? Are you saying that it would be bad for illegal copying and use of other people's work to be stopped? Copyright infringement is pretty much the same as my deciding that since I have found a way to intercept your pay when it is being transferred to your checking account, it's therefore OK for me to take some of it.

curious said:

I don't understand the comment about copyright infringement? Are you saying that it would be bad for illegal copying and use of other people's work to be stopped? Copyright infringement is pretty much the same as my deciding that since I have found a way to intercept your pay when it is being transferred to your checking account, it's therefore OK for me to take some of it.

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More so it was about privacy altogether than just piracy.

As for copyright infringement I don't think it can be compared to taking part of your paycheque. Most people who pirate music wouldn't go out and buy the cds if pirating wasn't an option - I know I wouldn't. It's not like they have already earned the money and we're taking it... they just aren't getting anything out of something they wouldn't have got anything for anyway.

... I think this would be a topic for another thread.

The Parakeet said:

They are trying to protect the commercial side of the Internet (specifically, they are investigating reports that say that it is vulnerable to attack...chances are that the council will just say that private enterprise has sufficiently protected it...yada, yada, yada).

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Let's hope it goes this way as I'm sure the Government Revenue people must be sallivating when they see the commercial activity and could possibly find ways to have a tighter control of the situation so as to maximize the taxes they can impose on these activities.

There's really no way that they could oppressively tax it.

If they wanted to tax the Internet, then they would just slap a tax on ISP and have them pass that on. Sales tax on online purchases is already in place in theory. They just don't bother checking it right now since it doesn't represent a significant drain. New York was the only one to lead the charge and force sites to ask.

The internet is a vast place to guard. I think it's very wrong to just let the internet be stopped by a certain person. The only problem is if that person wants to have a news blackout, with a snap of a finger, the internet will be cut-off and no more information can be taken off it.

The Parakeet said:

There's really no way that they could oppressively tax it.

If they wanted to tax the Internet, then they would just slap a tax on ISP and have them pass that on. Sales tax on online purchases is already in place in theory. They just don't bother checking it right now since it doesn't represent a significant drain. New York was the only one to lead the charge and force sites to ask.

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I'm not very savvy in this. Is it possible for someone to start a completely new Internet, i.e. can the ISP be bypassed?

deanhills said:

I'm not very savvy in this. Is it possible for someone to start a completely new Internet, i.e. can the ISP be bypassed?

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Well, starting a new internet would be something... I mean you'd lose billions of existing webpages and the costs would be insane. If you mean simply starting your own providing services, you could... but the same laws would still apply.

Anyway, ISP tax is already in talks... although I'm not sure how serious. It's going to be a "media" tax for the effects of piracy. I'm all for it if it will get the record companies to quiet down.

Delta said:

Anyway, ISP tax is already in talks... although I'm not sure how serious. It's going to be a "media" tax for the effects of piracy. I'm all for it if it will get the record companies to quiet down.

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This is worrisome news for me. I am totally against any kind of control by Government. Hacking will just expand exponentially.

deanhills said:

This is worrisome news for me. I am totally against any kind of control by Government. Hacking will just expand exponentially.

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That is exactly what will happen. Many will try to learn how to hack just to get the informations they need. I don't want to see that happen anytime. I also do hate the fact that all things are now being taxed. Maybe there will come a time that oxygen is taxed.

GekiDan said:

Maybe there will come a time that oxygen is taxed.

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I don't think that is farfetched at all. The Chinese are already talking about expat factories in Mainland China having to pay to clean up the pollution. So possibly it is already in the works. I must say, I would hate to live there in those awfully polluted cities.