Cyber Security

Given the current brouhaha over the possibility of Russia trying to influence our recent presidential  election using computer hacking, it seems appropriate to shine a light on this subject. Please note that, although I have no deep expertise in this subject, I am not a complete neophyte either. I was involved in a Data General Corporation development project were computer security was a key element. And so, I have concluded that there is no such thing as complete cyber security. It all depends upon the amount of push back against possible breaches. If we need any example of same, point to Edward Snowden who, in order to teach the world about how we are being spied upon by our government, naively gave troves of invaluable information to those who would harm us. This breach was accomplished not over a communication connection but by using tiny portable flash drives that can store multiple gigabytes of data.

Many years ago when time-sharing computing was in its infancy, I concluded that, if a computer had a connection to the outside world, it was by definition compromised. Then came the personal computer whose operating systems developers, mostly Microsoft, left data security out of their designs for expediency (and profit) sake ... and because connecting these "personal" computers was thought anathema. Personal computers didn't take long to kill the economic advantage of time-sharing and thus kill this technology. And then came the Internet with almost universal connectivity ... an opening a mile wide for cyber security breaches. Now, the advent of the "cloud" makes the protection of remote data storage and processing even more vulnerable, albeit convenient.

So what steps can be taken to start to protect today's electronic devices from these data piracy threats? Here are just a few:

- Develop the ability to isolate various levels of network interconnectivity. China already has the ability to cut off its entire national network from the rest of the world. Clearly this capability should be available to the U.S. as well as other sub-sectors of the Internet. It would seem to me that those providing networking hardware and software such as Cisco Systems could find a ready market for such a rigorous and scalable capability which might be automatically triggered by 'denial of service' attacks.

- In particularly sensitive applications, install computers that have no ports through which data can be offloaded onto any external storage device.

- Move all critical operating system components to microcode or even hardware which cannot be accessed anyway but through physical access to the computer ... and physically secure such access as one would a vault. Other O.S., interface and even some application code should be located in memory which generates a default if any changes are attempted to the bit structure. Action taken on such a default would be under the the control of the system administrator.

- Encrypt all sensitive data and applications with software whose keys vary in length with the degree of sensitivity of what is to be encoded. But don't assume any encrypted information cannot be decoded unless a truly randomized one-time pad is used.

And I'm sure other more sophisticated steps are possible. However such cyber security is expensive in both money and computer performance terms. But we are rapidly reaching the point were such costs can and need to be borne.

Lethal Injections

Dylann Roof is now in the sentencing phase of his murder trial for killing nine members of a black church in Charleston, SC ... see: Aiken Standard Article.

If it were up to me, I would love to see this chicken fry ... or whatever trendy verb can be applied to a lethal injection.

And while we are at it, how about also offing the Boston Marathon bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, and, that traitor, Bowe Bergdahl? Oh, what the hell, if we can entice Edward Snowden back from Russia, let's also do him in (but the firing squad for this one.)

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

Jersey Jihadi's wife fled to Pakistan before bombings

Navy requires all sailors to undergo transgender education by July, 2017

France bans plastic forks and spoons to battle 'climate change'

Venezuela: Over 15% of people eat garbage to survive

Emmys viewership hits new lows ...

Hillary: 'Remember refugees didn't do 9/11'

NYC Mayor calls for more Muslim migrants ...

Report: All three Clintons called Secret Service 'pigs'

Soros to give $500M to migrants

Establishment Dilemma: Pardon Edward Snowden or hang him

Steyn: The more Muslims, the more terrorism

[Dr.] Rand Paul: Hillary has significant health problems

Justice Blinked

The Department of Justice blinked in its attempt to force Apple to open up the IPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist, Sayed Farook. The FBI now says that it has found a third party (NSA?) to open up this possible source of further intelligence and doesn't need the court to force Apple to comply ... see: Politico Story. This all sounds very fishy and halfway supports Apple's position that this FBI request was a red herring really meant to open up the IPhone to generic government access (not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that.)

This FBI vs. Apple issue is all about personal privacy. American people want to believe that our Constitution guarantees them an inviolate cocoon of privacy that our government cannot pierce no matter what national security issues involved. Clearly this may not be the case. However, in a related development, Edward Snowden, our traitor hero,  avers that the federal government is not the only risk to our personal security. He says that large technology companies such as Microsoft are equally guilty of the invasive collection of our personal information ... far more than we suspect ... see: Sputnik News Story. I agree with the rat-fink Snowden and would add at least Google, Apple and Facebook to his named snoop.

If you think that Big Brother government is the only risk to your little secrets, you are just another babe in the woods.

Homesick

That snively traitor and pop-hero, Edward Snowden, apparently is homesick and would like to return to the United States from his exile in Russia ... see: New York Times Story. He is currently negotiating through his Russian lawyer with the U.S. authorities as to the terms of his return.

Knowing what bad deal makers the Obama administration is, I would not doubt that he is holding out to get his old job back at the NSA.

Our Hero

Starry-eyed and fuzzy-brained leftists have extolled Edward Snowden’s patriotism in his leaking of information about the extent of the NSA surveillance program.  What they have conveniently ignored is that snow-job Snowden compromised enormous amounts of non-NSA secrets that has sent U.S. intelligence agencies into a deep funk … and given Russia and China a huge leg-up in international hegemony. 

Yesterday the House Armed Services Committee was given a briefing about the length and breadth of Snowden's perfidy … and they were shocked and angered as a result … see: PJ Media Piece. These Representatives would and could not give the specifics of what they learned in this briefing, but it was clearly devastating.

 I have in the past written about the fallacy of not understanding that Snowden could be both a hero and a traitor at the same time … see: Excluded Middle Commentary.  So to establish a modicum of justice in this international kerfuffle, may I make the following suggestion?  Right after Snowden receives his Nobel Peace Prize (a good bet), I suggest that he be led, to the beat of a muffled drummer, to a thick brick wall to receive his reward from the U.S. security agencies … about one pound of hot lead into his being … possibly with all his third-column accomplices being forced in shackles to witness same.

Drain

Current New York Times reporting is that, before he flew to Moscow from Hong Kong, the Chinese government “drained” Edward Snowden’s four laptops of all their data (see: NY Times Article).  Four laptops!  That’s a very large parcel of National Security Agency (NSA) secrets that Snowden took with him while he was becoming a pop hero to America’s young’ins … by outing the NSA for their imagined or real misdeeds. 

Now Snowden is in Moscow and he has missed his first flight to Havana on his way to Ecuador (see: NY Times Article).  I can’t help but suppose that, during this delay,  the Ruskies are duplicating the Chi-Coms in their downloading of all the United States’s most secret data that Snowden could get his weaselly hands on.  And I also suspect that Cuba and Ecuador will be duplicating this tapping of our twitty traitor's cyber-tree.  United States’ intelligence operations have not been sabotaged … they have been devastated …  The worst part is that we probably don't know exactly what data has been compromised!

And where is President Obama on this intelligence catastrophe … hiding under his desk once again so as to not show his hand to the youth of America?  I don’t think he can blame this one on a YouTube video.

I have previously written a blog on this Snowden incident (see: Excluded Middle) in which I suggested that Eddy Baby should be tried for treason and, if found guilty, he be executed. 

I think I was too easy on him.

Excluded Middle

There seems to be a crisp dichotomy between the opinions regarding Edward Snowden’s leaking of National Security Agency (NSA) secrets.  Many, like Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times view him as a patriot and Dick Chaney (among many others) think him a callous traitor.  Snowden himself says, “I’m neither traitor nor hero. I’m an American.”  The Diplomad blog, which I often read, views him as treasonous … but many of the comments therein disagree … see: The Diplomad Blog … and please read through the many thoughtful comments.

Now comes my opinion -- there is a law in logic that deals with such a situation, namely that most opiners are ignoring that both possibilities might be true … or the “excluded middle” (see: Princeton Comments ). And so, I believe that Snowden is both a patriot and a traitor.  He has opened up the debate about what exactly the intelligence operations in this country should be permitted to do without destroying our fundamental freedoms.  For this he is a hero.  But he has also a turncoat … and, through fuzzy thinking and media grandstanding, is revealing many national security secrets that are doing great damage to our counter-terrorism efforts and embarrassing us with our allies.  Unlike many Americans, I don’t think that one conclusion mitigates the other one.

For this latter gross malfeasance, I think he should be extradited and tried for treason.  If he is found guilty, I would have no problem with his being executed.  Such a punishment would clear the minds of other potential Benedict Arnold's before they are duped and try to grab international headlines with such dangerous revelations.

Jackboots

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

These were President Obama’s poorly-chosen words in his recent commencement address at Ohio State University (for more on this, see: American Thinker Comments) … during the time it was being revealed (and reviled) that his administration had an extensively wiretap dragnet out for the Associated Press and Fox News reporters, a clear violation of our Constitution’s First Amendment … and had also given, since 2010, extensive jackboot power to the IRS to suppress conservative activists … probably with the intent of affecting the outcome of the 2012 election (see: Bad Apple).  Frightenly, this actual tyranny may have succeeded.

And, in the last few days, we have also learned that our National Security Agency (NSA) has acquired years of phone and Internet “metadata” (phone numbers, URLs, times, and durations) of virtually every American (for an interview with the leaker of these revelations, Edward Snowden, see: Guardian Story).  I strongly suspect that we will someday discover that the extent of these government intrusions on Americans’ privacy actually went much further than has been reported.

Now, to use Obama’s own words, this “sinister entity,” our government, also does have the obligation  to protect its citizenry ... and so there is some rationale for them to monitor extremists on both sides of the political spectrum … those who might be trying to do us evil.  

But, it seems, to this commentator, that the Obama administration is seriously unbalanced in its approach to such threats.  When the Director of Homeland Security (and, possibly, our next Attorney General), Janet Napolitano, was a tyro in her current office, she specifically fretted that those on the right were the greatest threat to our national security … see: Washington Times Story.  Boy was she off the mark!  Despite all these NSA communication intrusions and Justice Department First Amendment tramplings, every actual or attempted serious assaults on Americans on our soil over the last 4 ½ years have come from Islamic extremists … see: Washington Times Story

I guess I now classify as one of those voices against whom Obama was railing to the Ohio State graduates?   Damn straight!

Afterthought: With all of NSA's uber-extensive monitoring of U.S. citizens' communications traffic, not only did it miss the Boston Marathon Bombers' intrigues ... but it also dropped the ball on Ed Snowden himself's mischief making.  Perhaps it only is interested in our e-mails that contain  phrases like "Don't tread on me"?