I find it remarkable that we now have a U.S. President who is technically savvy.
He is blackberry-addicted, knows how to use email, recruits volunteers and mobilizes people using the web as a tool... and is actually AWARE that CYBER-SECURITY is an incredibly important issue. Wow!
It was heartening last week to see an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal mention the appointment of Melissa Hathaway as the cyber-security czar for the national security council. That's the POPULAR PRESS talking about cyber-security. The technical rags are writing about it as well, here's on in E-Week "In the Obama Era Routing has to Change, Too.
Over the last couple of years there have been a lot of preliminary meetings on improving our nation's cyber-security infrastructure. Bill Worley and/or I have attended meetings at Sandia, MIT, Johns Hopkins, let alone Blackhat & Defcon. Those meetings set the stage; now is the time to put some wood behind the arrow. Thank you Mr. President!
But... will we throw away everything and start all over, as mentioned in this NY Times article? Or will we make the existing net safer, as mentioned in the CircleID blog posting?
Mostly I see an evolutionary approach, but with a few disruptive technologies thrown in from time to time. And because of this belief, I am very glad to see that these articles are emphasizing two of my favorite topics on shoring up the existing internet -- by solidifying DNS and BGP with DNSSEC and BGPSEC. Sure there are lots of other security holes in the internet, but these two need attention quickly.
Keep it up Mr. President. Change we can believe in.
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