Chinese talking cybersecurity means security is already lost

A longtime reader and good friend of mine sent me a link this week to a CNBC story about the loss of fingerprint records in the Office of Personnel Management hack I have written about before. It’s just one more nail in the coffin of a doltish bureaucracy that — you know I’m speaking the truth here — will probably result in those doltish bureaucrats getting even more power, even more data, and ultimately losing those data, too.

So the story says they lost the fingerprint records of 56 million people! Game over.

Remember how this story unfolded? There had been a hack and some records were compromised. Then there had been a hack and […]

Cyberpolice Academy

While we’ve gone close to a decade since 9/11 without airliners smashing into skyscrapers, it is hard to see the Department of Homeland Security as an unvarnished success. Under a variety of directors the department has consistently taken a heavy-handed approach to security that upsets travelers on the left and right alike, relies too much on fear-mongering, and is frequently just plain incompetent. Yet these are the folks who are now about to take over cyber-security, too.  I think there is a better way.

According to recent reports there is legislation moving shortly from the White House to Congress intended to put all U.S. non-military cyber-security responsibility with the Department of Homeland Security.

It’s logical, […]

The Cybersecurity Myth

DHSThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said this week it will hire up to 1,000 cybersecurity experts over the next three years to help protect U.S. computer networks. This was part of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and the announcement was made by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who also said they probably won’t need to hire all 1,000 experts, which is good because I am pretty sure THERE AREN’T ONE THOUSAND CIVILIAN CYBERSECURITY EXPERTS IN THE ENTIRE FRIGGIN’ WORLD!!!!

So I polled six old friends who ARE cybersecurity experts and they kinda-sorta agreed with me.  More on this below.

But first I have to marvel that I even know six cybersecurity experts and — even […]