the guise of safety
everyday i notice more measures taken in the name of protecting us from the "terrorism" boogey-man and his evil sidekick, the mailicious "hacker". here's an article from cnn on Richard Clarke, the president's computer security advisor, and his upcoming national plan to "protect" cyberspace. this plan provides "expectations" for computer security and use for everyone from home end-users to people in the banking "sector". the article clearly states that these recommendations would not be mandated by law [the difference between a government recommendation and a law? another terrorist attack.]. the part that really makes me cringe is where it says the government is "struggling" because most of the country's critical computers - water supply and electrical companies, and banking institutions - are run by private companies. the implication, of course, is that the government should run them, or at least have Richard Clarke and his praetorian guard in on everything. the plan also includes, of course, government-provided software [basically, modified versions of win2k] to be installed onsite for all of these businesses to help "secure" their networks and infrastructure. collectively, this plan and package, referred to as the "Gold Standard", which incidently was developed in part by the pentagon and the nsa if you hadn't already guessed, will be released sep. 19. Matt @ 11:05 AM