Ok, this new proposed regulation of cybersecurity is ridiculous.  The administration and members of congress want control of 'key sections' of the internet for fear of power outages and other cybersecurity threats to our infrastructure?  The main question that screams in my mind is, and I've had this question since we first started seeing worms take out power and water plants, why are these things tied into the internet to begin with?  What is the point?  Intranets for ease of administration of the computer systems controlling the machinery, yes, but remote access over the internet of mission-critical systems is just insanity.  Sorry non-CS/CE majors out there, just sum that up as "networking together the computers inside the plants = good, hooking the network to the internet = bad".

I see this as just another power-grab.  A lot of our economy (and most of my generation's news and information) is based in the internet.  Control the internet,  you control a lot of our culture and economy.  Now, granted, a lot of things that I read into the Patriot Act never came to pass (I haven't disappeared yet for talking quite freely about my distrust of the government, for example), so hopefully if this internet control bill passes, it will be the same way.  But I doubt it.  This president seems the type to take a vague legislation and run with it.  And that's a lot of what bothered me about the Patriot Act, and a lot of what bothers me about this bill-- the vagueness of wording.  There are no clear definitions of who/what this applies to (just basically whatever the executive branch deems 'critical'), and no limits placed upon the powers granted in the bill.  So this could run the gamut, in practice, from a bunch of feel-good nothingness, to a step towards China-esque control of the internet within our borders.

Assuming this gets extended to a power-grab on par with China's control of their internet, that is a scary thought considering how much of the internet infrastructure is governed, standardized, and administered within US borders.  ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the company that handles registrations of domain names) and IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, they handle assigning IP addresses to people and assigning ports to programs) are both in the US, the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), IAB (Internet Architecture Board), and ISOC (Internet Society) are mainly based here.  ISOC is the umbrella group of the IETF and IAB, who in turn are responsible for the various workings and standards governing how the internet works under the hood.  This legislation already proposes regulating IANA, so that the federal government has to approve any renewals or changes of IP addressing blocks that companies hold.

So think about this.  Say, townhall.com handles their own IP address(s) (I have no idea how they handle their internet, just an example), and like anyone who owns a block of IP addresses they have to renew their contract periodically.  If townhall.com is considered a 'threat to cybersecurity' (or national security, or whatever) they can have their IP block revoked and get pulled offline.  Scary, huh?

The other thing that strikes me about this bill is how much stuff that's already done by the private sector is taken over by the government.  For one thing, tracking bugs and vulnerabilities is taken over by the Dept. of Commerce, rather than being handled by various groups like Bugtraq, linuxsecurity.com, etc.  The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will be required to dictate standards for testing and maintaining network security-- right now there are several private organizations that handle certifications and training in security.

But wait, not only does this bill regulate (and potentially stifle) the internet, it also governs intranets.  What's the difference?  The internet is what you're using right now to visit other people's computers.  An intranet is a collection of private computers not connected to the world in general.  For those of you with multiple computers who have a home network, your network is an intranet; if you unplug your modem from the internet, your computers stay connected to your network and can still access each other.  Or if you can access other work computers within your office from inside your office, that's a company intranet.  This legislation is applying the same rules for those as for the big ol' Internet.  Including proposing setting up friendly local offices to help your small/medium businesses comply.

So going back to the power plants, even those not stupidly connected to the internet are still going to be under government control.  Again, why?

Considering how badly the government and military handle their own cybersecurity, using outdated and lobbyist-influenced technologies, standards, and protocols, what makes anyone think they'll handle ours any better?  The government receives failing marks on its security, yet what's good for them is good for us.  They also want the specs and proposals for the overhaul of our nation's cybersecurity done in 6 months.  Private industry just doesn't move that fast, and government by its own rules and laws can't.  The government has to take at least a year to draw up all the proposals and do their reviews and measurements of 'hiring effectiveness', etc.  Private industry would probably take at least that long to adopt this, assuming they don't completely try to balk at the idea of the government pushing them around telling them who they can hire and what sort of network infrastructure they need to implement.  Because that's yet another facet of this-- you not only have to have the industry certifications already required to be hired as a reputable cybersecurity professional (not to mention the degrees)-- you have to be government certified as well.

Hopefully this mess of misguided legislation will never fly.  Regulating, stifling, controlling, and micromanaging a pillar of our economy and a large part of our culture and news sources is an incredibly bad idea.  Government certification of IT employees and imposing their poor quality of computing on us will set back american businesses even further than they already are.  Not to mention the 'standardizing' of our internet and intranets, which is already being handled by autonomous international standards bodies, and handled quite well it seems.  All this is a recipe for disaster, and one more thing that will hopefully wake up Americans to the nightmare of this administration.

This actually made me lose sleep last night, and it's something that's been bothering me for a while.  Since when did (apparently) everything imaginable become a 'right'?  I think I remembering being taught in ELP that there's only a handful of actual factual rights.  The main three, which the others come from, are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (or, for you Lockean purists out there, Life, Liberty, and Property-- but the founding fathers just didn't want to go there).  The others are the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights (makes sense, right?)-- freedom of speech, assembly, religion, press, right to bear arms, habeas corpus, privacy, etc.

I don't remember healthcare being in the either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, or in any of the writings of any of the founding fathers.  Or did I miss that class?  Nor do I remember affordable housing as a right.  Nor education.  Nor is voting (look it up and prove me wrong if you can).  These are all privileges, which you must strive to earn.  How do you earn these privileges?  Well, most of them you earn by getting off your butt and working for a living.  I afford my housing by working.  I don't have healthcare, but what little I need I pay for out-of-pocket.  I pay for my education completely out-of-pocket (I don't qualify for Pell grants and work-study barely pays anything and takes time away from my job) and I earn whatever grades I get.  I earn my privilege to vote by being an informed citizen of legal age with no felonies on my record that keep me from voting.

I don't understand this mentality of being entitled to everything just for having a pulse.  This mentality started with my parents' generation (although it's not as pervasive in their generation as it is in mine).  My grandparents are appalled at the thought of being handed everything (I tend to agree-- I dislike charity, and hate the idea of owing anybody anything, which I feel if anyone give me anything).  It especially makes no sense because most of these 'rights' mean the government is meddling in our lives and taking control away from us.  I don't want this, and I don't understand anyone else wanting it either.

I know from the mishap with Gerald Evans' bio, the bio is limited.  So, here we go.  I'm 23 years old, a student at a local community college majoring in Computer Engineering Technology, and engaged to Gerald Evans.

I grew up in a pretty politically active family.  My grandpa was a former Marine (WWII and Korea), remained till the day he died a staunch conservative (formerly Kennedy Democrat till sometime in the 60's or so) who helped out his party of choice; he also turned me on to listening to Rush Limbaugh when I was 5.  My mom became very politically active when we moved down here and she saw the state of the education system here (and how it was getting ready to get worse).  I decided to emulate these relatives, risking failing classes in grade school because certain liberal teachers didn't appreciate my views.  In 10th grade ELP (economics, law, and politics), I got fed up with the teacher constantly bashing supply-side economics and sat down over Christmas break and wrote a 15-page research paper educating him on what it really is and how/why it works.  Cocky, yes; over-the-top, yes; but it kept me off the streets and out of trouble, and let me vent constructively.  I got extra credit, and he actually liked the paper.

As soon as I turned 18, I registered to vote (in anticipation of the election the next year) and registered Libertarian.  I'd heard of Libertarians years earlier, and strongly identified with them (seeing as how some sort of government is a necessary evil for large populations).  They contacted me about meetings, so I went and found out they needed a secretary.  I figured "what the he--" and became secretary.  I was a bad secretary.  But whatever.

Starting college, I dabbled in liberalism to a certain degree (basically more extreme versions of the views I already have, like views on civil liberties in regards to the war, etc.) and came to my senses after about 3 months.  Shows what good college transfer degrees are for.

I don't bother trying to consider myself a republican for many reasons.  I believe in as little government as possible (strict interpretation of probably 50% of the Constitution, and throw out the other 50%).  I believe (and this is going to get under a lot of peoples' skins) abortion should be legal (otherwise we'd be right back to back-alley abortions, because prohibition never works) but only in the first trimester, and it should be discouraged through teaching people morals (and a mix of abstinence and birth control education during sex ed) and only be used without question or stigma in the event of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life (the latter of which could be in any trimester).  I do believe in legalizing marijuana, not because I can/want to smoke it (I neither can nor want to), but because I don't see the harm of legalizing it-- and considering how popular it seems to be (judging by my classmates), there could be some real revenue made from it.

I'm getting bored, and I figure you'll learn more about me from my posts.  Sorry if I put you off by rambling so much, I promise my actual blogs will be more interesting.