Feds Move to Secure Net

An anonymous reader writes "eWeek reports:The Cyber Warning Information Network, a key part of the Bush administration's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, will use a secure, private IP network separate from the public Internet, according to officials. The government currently has seven nodes running, said Marcus Sachs, director of communications infrastructure protection at the Office of Cyberspace Security, in Washington."

What's the News?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Cyber Warning Information Network, a key part of the Bush administration's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, will use a secure, private IP network separate from the public Internet, according to officials.

TOP STORY: A single government branch sets up an internal network, separate from the internet. Tonight at eleven, find out what kind of routers they bought.

Re:I would hope so

[gbjbaanb]

don't forget that those physical tests are 'standing up straight', 'sitting still without fidgeting', and 'looking at things outside without squinting'.

Its a good job they didnt do psychological tests too - 'talking to other people without using IM' - or they'd have no computer experts at all!

And this wasn't in place before?

[smoon]

The company I work for has had a 70+ node WAN with separate IP address space from the Internet for about 5 years, and before that a 6-7 node WAN running IPX.

This seems so utterly obvious that I'm completely mystified as to why this is a news-worthy article. Or is this just a joke?

Yipee! The feds have an 'intranet'. I hope I don't pee my pants with excitement!

Re:So how will they get data in/out ?

[decarelbitter]

One word: sneakernet.

if true : do stuff;

[watzinaneihm]

1 Start a network for army
2 Open it to Universities
3 Open it to everyone
4 Watch while "terrorists" start to spread viruses on it
5 Start network for the Feds
.....Rinse and repeat.

That's handy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if terrorists want to attack american government, we can still download porn at full speed :)

Re:What's the News?

[the uNF cola]

I think it's akin to having your child say his/her first words. I'm impressed with the gov't. Next thing you know, they'll stop using default passwords ;)

Hmm.

[twiztidlojik]

Wonder if they're testing the TIA project on their intraweb ;)

Re:if true : do stuff;

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

6 (Warning: Unreachable code): Profit!

Also, they'll use decimal IPv4 addresses -- which would explain a lot about the Uplink game [introversion.co.uk]...

The real reason...

[Bazzargh]

everybody from outside who came onto their Unreal Tournament server kicked their ass.

7 nodes? What is this - an FBI LAN party?

Soo, If i want to mail them

[grazzy]

And ask them if they run a vuln version of sendmail, can i use "secret-gateway.mil.org" then?

Noooo

[Timesprout]

Its all part of a cunning plot by cigarette man to put all the p0rn on the net someplace we cant get it.

About the sendmail vulnerability

[6169]

I notice in the article that the Feds et al. were notified of the sendmail security flaw before the official release. Um. Not that I have anything against the FBI perusing my pr0n collection (Leanna Hart -- Locker Room.avi is quite good if y'all are listening), but this scares the fuck out of me.

Sachs, speaking at the conference here, which was put on by The SANS Institute, pointed to last week's handling of the critical vulnerability in the Sendmail Mail Transfer Agent package as a prime example of how such back-channel communication between vendors, researchers and the government can help protect end users. Researchers at Internet Security Systems Inc., in Atlanta, discovered the vulnerability in mid-February and immediately notified officials at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.

The government quietly spread the word among federal agencies and, along with ISS, began contacting the affected vendors. After the vendors developed patches, the fixes were deployed quickly on critical government, military and private-sector machines before the official announcement of the vulnerability.

Seven nodes on non-public IP block?

[Joff_NZ]

The government currently has seven nodes running, said Marcus Sachs, director of communications infrastructure protection at the Office of Cyberspace Security, in Washington.

Let me guess:
192.168.0.1
192.168.0.2
192.168.0.3
192.168.0.4
192.168.0.5
192.168.0.6
192.168.0.7

Re:I would hope so

[Black Copter Control]

A long time ago, a friend of mine asked a client at CSIS (Canadian Security and Intelligence Service) what kind of firewall they used.

"We don't use a firewall

We use an air gap."

Made sense to me... Now if they'd only stop losing their laptops....

Somone on FIDO will gateway it to AOL

[blair1q]

And then we'll be able to see what John Aschroft really thinks about naked statuary pr0n.

Re:How is that supposed to work?

[q9uv]

It'll be a tiny little piece of Cyber-Heaven.

It looks like they think the WWW is too worldly and too wide. They could choose to just phone in the next Red Alert. Or use radio. Or homing pigeons.