UK Launches Dedicated Cyber Security Agency

Jack Spine writes "The UK government is launching an office dedicated to cyber attack and defence. The Office of Cyber Security will focus on protecting Britain's IT infrastructure, and will be similar to the US Cyber Command model. While the Pentagon Cyber Command will be lead by the NSA, the UK Cyber Security Operations Centre, which will coordinate UK cyber efforts, will be based at GCHQ in Cheltenham."

The good guys using DDoS?

[Fzz]

From TFA:

The government will develop information systems to allow it to launch denial-of-service attacks and to spy on chosen targets, said the official. "We will have a whole range of offensive capabilities, including distributed denial-of-service," said the official. "DDoS is not a first response -- we definitely need graduated responses."

You might have thought it would be better to fund development of mechanisms to prevent or mitigate DDoS attacks, rather than rely on using them. The bad guys will always be able to command more bots than any legal response could.

We just do...

[EddyPearson]

...what the US tells us to, don't we?

*sigh*

Re:The good guys using DDoS?

[janwedekind]

You might have thought it would be better to fund development of mechanisms to prevent or mitigate DDoS attacks, rather than rely on using them. The bad guys will always be able to command more bots than any legal response could.

You also might have thought it would be better to prevent Microsoft Windows rather than using it. But I guess it's too late in both cases because the stuff is owned, licensed, and controlled by third parties.

Re:We just do...

[TheRaven64]

Not sure why you're kidding. There's a lot of that kind of thing going on between the UK and US governments. Typically, someone on one side of the pond has a moderately good idea. Someone on the other side takes it to its logical conclusion. Someone back on the first side takes it a bit further. Then, they harmonise their efforts by taking it to ridiculous extremes.

It's fun to blame Americans for everything (and, let's face it, they are so easy to bait), but often we're as much to blame for their stupid behaviour as we are for theirs. Take the Iraq war fiasco, for example. The US and UK intelligence services met up, and admitted to each other that they didn't really have much evidence. Both sides went back and said to their superiors something along the lines of 'we don't have much evidence, but they've got this and we think they've got some more serious evidence that they don't want to share with us for national security reasons'. These then made it into reports to politicians. A few years later, they both realised that both sides were telling the truth (unheard of in intelligence circles) and they really didn't know anything.

Re:Thankfully the UK,...

[TheRaven64]

Lucky bstrds and their "1mbps Top Tier High-Speed(tm)" ADSL network

My mother, living in the middle of nowhere in rural England gets 1Mb/s ADSL. Those of us nearer cities get a lot more. I'm on 10Mb/s (closer to 8.8 in practice), with my ISP offering speeds up to 50Mb/s. Most cities also have 24Mb/s ADSL2.

I think you are confusing network infrastructure with government projects. Typically, an IT project in the UK follows this process:

1. Open for bids.
2. Appoint EDS because they have the most experience in government IT contracts.
3. EDS goes over budget.
4. EDS fails to deliver anything.
5. EDS adds another entry to the list of government projects they've completed for entry with the next bid.