This could have been a much better story if it wasn't dropping into the realm of scare tactics. Though the criticism is likely warranted, with all the money that has spent, the paradigm of information assurance and security hasn't changed much.

Though simplistic the analogy is we designed the auto industry, but we've fallen behind everybody else who are now driving George Jetson air scooters.

I hate to say it but some of the under current of this article supports the idea that maybe culturally we will never be able to secure of utilize cyber space it is just to much of a change at this time.

More at the link

Former White House cyber-security and anti-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke isn't known as a fan of the current administration, but political loyalties aside, the expert claims that the president's new initiative aimed at bolstering the nation's electronic infrastructure is fundamentally flawed.

Speaking at the inaugural Source Boston security conference, Clarke expressed his concerns over the national electronic security initiative signed by Bush on Jan. 8.

While the measure has yet to be detailed by the White House publicly, the Washington rumor mill is already circulating many details of the strategy and Clarke said the plan won't have the effect that the president's advisors are hoping for.

The two major thrusts of the Bush mandate, according to Clarke, are aimed at better securing the government's own computing and communications networks, and adopting a more proactive approach to engaging in cyber-warfare.

In both cases, the plan may in fact serve to weaken U.S. security and privacy efforts, he said.

As Clarke sees it, the biggest flaw in the portion of the measure devoted to protecting government computing operations is a lack of recognition that most of those systems run on the same infrastructure, and through the same carriers, as the rest of the nation's Internet traffic.

"There's the idea that somehow these are government networks that we're talking about, but they really aren't, all these government sites are running through the same network of routers and the same fiber channels as everything else, there's no segmentation on these carrier networks," Clarke said. "This means that [the plan's authors] either don't know that and merely think they need to reinforce security on state-owned servers, or data in their own facilities, in which case thy are missing most of the problem, or that they plan to do monitoring of everything going through the carriers' systems."

If it is the latter, than Americans will need to prepare for a world where they have far less privacy in terms of their ability to access the Web without the potential for government observation, he said.

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