Cyber Security

The Obama administration has set the wheels of government in motion to protect us from "cyber attack".  This article is the latest that I have seen describing the effort and its ambitious goals.

Most computer security experts are opposed to any sort of federal control of our internet.  Despite the fact that it was originally a creature of the Defense Department, it is now a bastion of free enterprise, self reliance, and libertarian politics.

It is hard to explain the issues here to those who are not immersed in the technology, but it is easy to draw some parallels.    The Pentagon needs good locks on its doors, but federal control of cyber security nationwide would be a bad idea in the same way that federal control of locksmiths and lock manufacturing would be a bad idea.  Over the longer term, it leaves us more vulnerable both to our adversaries, and to our own government.

So it is with cybersecurity.

Our federal government, Pentagon computers and "power grid" systems most certainly need to clean up their acts if they are exposed to "cyber attack", but it is ludicrous to use this weakness to justify more federal authority over the rapidly changing, privately owned world of computer networks.