NSA Director Wants Threat Data Sharing With Private Sector 126
Trailrunner7 writes "While Congress and the technology community are still debating and discussing the intelligence gathering capabilities of NSA revealed in recent months, the agency's director, Gen. Keith Alexander, is not just defending the use of these existing tools, but is pitching the idea of sharing some of the vast amounts of threat and vulnerability data the NSA and other agencies possess with organizations in the private sector. Speaking at a time of great scrutiny of the agency and its activities, Alexander said that the NSA, along with other federal agencies such as the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and CIA, need to find a way to share the attack and vulnerability information they collect in order to help key private organizations react to emerging threats. Though the idea is still in its formative stages, Alexander said that it potentially could include companies in foreign countries, as well. 'We need the authority for us to share with them and them to share with us. But because some of that information is classified, we need a way to protect it,' Alexander said during a keynote speech at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit here Wednesday. 'Right now, we can't see what's happening in real time. We've got to share it with them, and potentially with other countries.'"
Bah. Just make it all public and to hell with it. (Score:3, Insightful)
He simply believes he is a higher class of human being than the rest of us.
No wonder it's hard to explain to such people that the cattle doesn't like being fire branded.
Chilling stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFA: “Right now, we can’t see what’s happening in real time. We’ve got to share it with them, and potentially with other countries.”
Speaking to a crowd of mainly industry and government workers, Alexander appealed to them to help support the information sharing concept and any legislation that may be required to implement it.
Look in the mirror (Score:5, Insightful)
If these goons want to see what the worst threat to freedom is they should simply install mirrors throughout all NSA buildings.
as a non-American (Score:5, Insightful)
How the hell is this not industrial espionage? And then you expect me to host my backups in a US-based cloud or use US-based services like Office365? Apparantly these NSA-approved encryption techniques dont work so good when you're trying to shield from the NSA.
How about this cloud-based electronic laboratory-notebook software that is being pitched to pharma companies. These contain all the sensitive data before the patents are filed. Will that data be "shared" with my competition as well?
Re:Chilling stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this guy for real? He's talking about real-time information sharing, obviously with no judicial oversight of any sort, rubber-stamped or otherwise.
Unfortunately, he is real . . . and seems to be a bit of a megalomaniac to boot . . . totally intoxicated and ripped to his tits with his ever increasing power. Joe McCarthy and Edgar Hoover 2.0 . . . Enterprise Edition.
It doesn't seem like there is anyone in the government or general public who has the courage to stand up to him.
Re:company valuation (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep your friends close and enemies closer.
Bring all the companies who've been complaining they can't reveal the NSA's information requests into your privileged enclave - to make them feel special.
And in the process, ensure those companies are even more firmly ensconced in the laws that prevent them from revealing anything.
Re:Bah. Just make it all public and to hell with i (Score:4, Insightful)
You voted for them!
No. I didn't. And even if I had, I don't believe democratically elected representatives represent their voters regardless of how is democracy implemented.
When it comes to representative democracy, it's impossible to emphasise enough that this can all be changed by voting differently.
That is false and naive.
As a simple proof, I challenge you to change it all by voting differently.
The mechanisms are there.
Nope.
So, ideologues, toadies and milquetoasts - please all go fuck yourselves and regenerate as something better - because it's time to build a society where there's a more equitable balance of power.
Thank you for your useful input.
Re:Bah. Just make it all public and to hell with i (Score:5, Insightful)
And emergency laws should last 3 months.
I believe some "emergency laws" shouldn't exist for any period of time; namely ones that violate people's rights (e.g. the USA PATRIOT ACT).
It's complete (Score:5, Insightful)
And the descent into fascism is complete.
The police have automatic weapons and battle-armour. How exactly, will private organisations, who already give all their customer data to the NSA, control terrorist threats? Thirteen years ago the US government socialized security services to make the country 'safe'. But now the NSA wants to privatize intelligence services! Three months ago they wanted to sack (IT support) contractors in the interests of national 'security'.
In Australia, a major rigged-games scandal has appeared. So sporting clubs are demanding access to intelligence from the federal police (US-ians think FBI).
Re:and once they have the vulnerability informatio (Score:4, Insightful)
Was thinking the same thing. Why should I believe this is anything but some sort of Trojan?
If not in the classical computer sense of a program that appears to do one thing and also does another, but in the more general sense as some way to help get me to let them in the door. If nothing else I am sure they won't be sharing the vulnerabilities they are actively using.
Sorry NSA but you have lost trust; its going to take years proving you can be a good actor before I'd advocate my security team collaborate with them. And so far I have not seen them even really start something like a real reform.
In summary -- Screw you Feds.
And I want... (Score:4, Insightful)
Every NSA employees home address, all the records on them published to a PUBLIC website and updated daily with their credit card records and purchasing habits.
They will gladly agree as they have nothing to hide.
Re:Bah. Just make it all public and to hell with i (Score:3, Insightful)
...
Then you're ignorant of how the world works. Plain and simple.
You got scammed and you still won't admit to it or recognize it. Thats a problem you need to overcome before you'll do anything productive in a political sense.
You voted for a marketing slogan. WTF does 'CHANGE' even mean? You got change. Not the change you thought he was magically referring to without him ever actually saying what 'change' was. The US political system just lets ignorance like your own win out. Its not the systems fault, its the fact that most people are like you and too lazy to look at what a politicians history has been rather than what their marketing slogan is.
Had you bothered to look at Obama's congressional voting record before you voted, nothing that has happened would be a surprise to you. But instead, you voted for OMFGBBQ CHANGE!