November 23rd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 4)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 23, 2009 @ 10:51 AM

Categories: Antitrust, Blogs, Censorship, China, Commerce, Congress, Copyright, Courts, Cyber Security, Cybercrime, Cyberwar, Defense, Disaster recovery, E-government, Elections, European Parliament, European Union, FCC, FTC, Government 2.0, Government technology, Green Dam, Homeland security, Intellectual Property, Intelligence, International, Journalism, Justice, Law enforcement, Open government, Regulations, Security, Senate, Social networks, Spam, Standards, State & Local Govt, Telecom, UK, United Kingdom, United Nations, Web, politics

Tags: Law, Court, Counter Point, Internet, Government, Doug Hanchard

Justice systems around the world had their entire world turned upside down over the past several years because of the Internet. The basic sets of laws, often founded on a nation’s constitution are being used in ways that many forefathers never anticipated or envisioned. Republic, Dominion and Socialist government institutions around the world are all facing the same issues - often without any clear path of legal precedent.

One of the challenges facing courts is jurisdiction. Because of the very nature of the Internet, legal systems are now faced with new roadblocks that did not exist 10 years ago. Traditional methods of law enforcement and legal treaties do work and continue to be the basis of process and dealing with prosecution and trials. Interpretation of existing laws and applying them to Internet-related cases has not been a significant challenge in many cases. But there are some new aspects of what is admitted into court.

Evidence

What has shocked the system is how Internet-based materials are now used in the courts as evidence. Everything from ISP logs, website blogs, and social media sites (among others) are now being used in ways that prosecutors and jurists have never had to deal with in the past. It is also becoming a battle ground for several areas of law, particularly the integrity of evidence. This has many in the legal world concerned. It’s becoming clear that this will be an area of significant debate and will have far-reaching consequences. Internet evidence does not have look and feel of traditional evidence and, in many cases, has yet to be challenged as to its validity. Prosecutors are faced with a dilemma that impacts how and what they prosecute. This in turn has created a new source of political initiatives that are not only questionable, but in some parts of the world viewed as extreme.

Don’t have a Law yet? We’ll make one

The evolution of law and how it is created has traditionally been a slow and low priority part of the political system. No longer is that the case. Government ministers and cabinet officials appear to be fast-tracking new laws, specifically because of the Internet at a rapid pace of late. Politicians are practically tripping over themselves drafting new bills that claim that they know how to fix the problems of cybercrime and abuse. These ideas are moving at such a rapid pace that often few people actually have read the fine print. What concerns many is the advice politicians are getting on how Internet law should be created. Governments all over the world will have significant impact on such issues as free speech, Net neutrality, news, crime and governance of institutions.

Prosecution

There is not much sympathy for the courts in many parts of the world. That may soon change as news travels across the multimedia world of the Internet. Attorneys general throughout the United States are political and create their own priorities and thus control what is heard before the courts. This may have significant consequences as to the timing of how the Internet evolves and impact the economics of the service that potentially influences it’s usage for decades. In the United Kingdom, the courts will have to take into account European treaties and the European Parliament. Canada’s magistrates may strike down or uphold newly created laws that may wind up creating in-balance that could take years to reverse.

Rules await the Internet

Regulators such as the CRTC, FCC, OfCom are charting new territory in communication rules and regulations. Lawmakers are beginning to micro-manage this process. No one yet knows what the impact these new elements will have on the judicial system. It will take years before this is known and goes through several rigorous tests of the court system. Case law may take a decade or more before any true outcomes are known. By that time, a nation will have changed political administration and have new agendas that reset the cycle before some true outcomes are known. Net Neutrality will be debated and wind up before the courts in jurisdictions around the world. The results will vary like your bandwidth speed and access to content.

Global perspective

Laws of a nation are now being combined in many parts of the world. The very essence of a sovereign nation set of laws is slowly being merged into a single set by which it will adhere to. This is particularly true in Europe where the European Parliament is attempting to create laws specifically surrounding the Internet. This has the potential to create political and legal challenges for courts in how they make decisions. The consequences have significant long term impacts on how courts operate and what order of Appeals and jurisdiction as they enter cyber space with profound outcomes yet to be decided.

The Supreme Court

Supreme Court decisions have not had an impact on the Internet - but likely will. Major court decisions at local, state, and provincial levels are being appealed and many will eventually be argued before the Supreme Court. That draws concern because of how many governments nominate and select jurists to be a part of the Supreme Court framework. In general terms, the institution is politically driven and has the potential to create decisions that may in fact be contrary to the very principles that many of us take for granted. It also works in the other direction. Many a government has had policies and laws overturned by the courts. Key segments will be privacy, Internet access and tracking - along with content management tangled with identity security. It could be argued that elected government officials are not a threat to the Internet, the courts are. The counter point is that will force parliamentarians to change the law, a task far easier said than done. Compounding the problem is that the highest courts around the world have (almost) unlimited tenure until death.  Jurists that will have profound impacts on the stance of governments surrounding Internet issues are in China, Pakistan, India, Russia, and the Middle East. China is unique in that it will have to eventually deal with treaties in which it is a signatory to, but no one has yet to appeal any government policies. It may soon have to. If WTO treaties are before their court system, the Internet could be next.

The court system in most democratic nations has dynamics rarely resulting in quick decisions. It may take years before government’s leaders and the lawmakers truly understand what they are dealing with. Some will fail in creating new laws that are considered extreme by many; others may actually pass the litmus test of a Supreme Court decision. History awaits the outcome.

Epilogue - it will never have an ending

So here we are; some of the files are out in the open, more need further decryption, understanding and updating. The pace of the discussion is increasing and appears to be moving along with few delays. 2010 promises to be the start of a new decade that has a few fundamental issues to resolve. The debate has begun and could be a pivotal point in how society uses and government manages the Internet.

Go back to:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 in this series

November 22nd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 3)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 22, 2009 @ 3:32 PM

Categories: Censorship, Congress, Courts, E-government, Elections, Government 2.0, Government technology, Homeland security, Journalism, Justice, Law enforcement, Regulations, Senate, Social networks, State & Local Govt, Web, politics

Tags: U.S., Safety Agency, Government, Internet, Vertical Industries, Doug Hanchard

Part III

From 1959 to 1975, the era of demonstration (Vietnam War) was to protest on the lawns and parks of universities and public venues. The Kent State shootings by National Guard troops in May of 1970 was not the first demonstration against government, but it certainly was the event that ignited further demonstrations at universities all over the United States. Demonstrators had no defense against armed troops and the toll was significant both in political values and individual trust in government. News organizations covered every demonstration nationally from that event onwards until the end of 1975.

There are more Internet Packets than there are bullets

Almost 40 years later, some government officials and elected official are pushing agendas that have long term consequences to its people that have similar overtones of big brother control.  Today the landscape is very different.  If people don’t like what they see potentially becoming Law, they have a new tools without fear of an M-16 being pointed at them. At one extreme end of protest, several protests went directly onto the offensive and have launched cyber war attacks against government institutions such as Estonia. It has been alleged that a U.S. Congressman suggested cyber attacks should be ordered against North Korea. I investigated this claim and could not find a single article verifying its authenticity, but it’s been reported all over the internet. A request for an interview was declined by the Congressman’s office.

It doesn’t stop there; non government groups are also launching political cyber attack campaigns against (VANK vs. Japan) each other. Emailing an elected official was the first step. Media tools which are now at the disposal of anyone, is an arsenal that has far more power than any individual or group in government can defeat. Instead of thousands of journalists covering a story, there is potentially billions of people reporting bits of news that are crisscrossing the globe that nobody can stop - for now. There is the potential for citizens to protest by using the internet to attack their own government, particularly in the United States and the U.K. and may believe it is their right to do so. This is not the kind of digital divide that government knows how to deal with either.  The days of the Boston Tea party are long gone and we know what happened two years later and that is not a scenario that will unfold or be repeated.

Governments have seen this potential and are developing applications and systems that can defend and attack any Internet event, foreign or domestic. This is not (just) about firewalls and creating offensive capabilities, but also about proposing new laws, which many believe are the beginning of a new era of government knows best.

Information is power

Many fear this could behold a future that dictates who holds control over the Internet. Early indications are that this view has some validity. Several nations (United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia) are already monitoring and archiving significant information about their constituents.  There’s nothing new in knowledge that databases exist containing information about its citizens. Here’s what is new: the scale and ultimate purpose. Public safety agencies are encouraged to share multiple databases of information. That has created a new culture in police enforcement and created a new breed of police officer that simply has far more information than they need or should have available to them upon which to make an appraisal or use with valid merit. We have witnessed new variants of stereotype and investigation methods police officers use which are wrong in its outcome. England’s decision to maintain DNA records of individuals, even if found innocent has already caught several police officers making snap decisions that a suspect must be guilty of ’something’ - is a classic example that happens routinely.

What’s good for catching the bad guy maybe worse for the upstanding citizen

People realize that information is kept and archived about them. How it is used or manipulated however, is a completely different discussion. Privacy and protection from abuse of such information has now become a priority concern for everyone and currently there is a widespread worry that government simply does not have the trust of people to ensure its safeguarding. Memories of May 4, 1970 may come back to haunt many.

Governments are proposing laws allowing the tracking and archiving where users are on the Internet. These laws have their foundation in protection against illegal downloading of copyright materials and while valid, have far more reaching consequences than that purpose, and most recognize it as such - except many politicians. How much more information is the government going to track - this blog perhaps? I know that the 754^th ELSG - Electronic System Group (part of the 554^th ESW Wing) of the U.S. Air Force out of Hanscom Air Force Base has visited the blog, as has the Central Intelligence Agency. That doesn’t mean they are monitoring or tracking this blog, but what’s to stop them for doing so (hi guys! *wave*) and creating a file? - Good thing I know they’re the good guys…..
Go to:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4 in this series

November 22nd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 2)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 22, 2009 @ 3:30 PM

Categories: Blogs, Censorship, Congress, Courts, Elections, Government 2.0, Government technology, Homeland security, Journalism, Justice, Multi-media, Obama, Open government, Senate, Social networks, Spam, State & Local Govt, Web, politics

Tags: News, Internet New, Spin Bad New, Internet, Portals, RSS, Government, Blogging, Doug Hanchard

Part II

It’s been suggested in many articles that President Obama won the U.S. election in 2008 because his campaign used Twitter, Facebook and other social media effectively over the course of the campaign that spanned two years.  But this new instant social media clearly it works both ways: Bad news travels much faster, and with significantly more power, than good news ever does. Face it: People love dirt and passing on bad news more often, with negative results which tend to stick in a voters mind for a longer period of time than good news does.

The snowball effect

There’s more to it than just a story being uploaded and published on a blog or RSS feed. It goes a lot farther, much much farther. Internet news is now available in every language, where anybody who has access to a computer or smart phone is now a potential audience for ‘news’. That has politicians nervous because just how many of these stories are published with incomplete information along with confirmation that the material they are publishing is true. Harder still, once it’s published, how much effort do you put into getting a retraction if the story is inaccurate? And if the politician pushes too far, it may be perceived that there is in fact truth to the article, compounding the problem.  Twitter spreads news like a virus and it’s unstoppable and often it doesn’t, if ever, post retractions or corrections at the same velocity. We thought we understood the 7/24 news cycle when the era of 200 television stations became a reality… uh no…not even close were we in understanding what this cycle means - until now.

The Spin

Bad news is also how the opposition takes aim at its targets. Once a story is in the wild, you can bet your opposite is firing out their take on a story, sometimes with twice the venom and quadruple the amount of information that can literately engulf the target.  If you thought spam was a problem, political drama is going to crush it in the years to come.  One question it raises is: Can we absorb it all? The politician may have an escape route after all. But there’s an old saying: If enough junk is thrown at the wall, some of it is going to stick…

The story

News is also about agendas that elected leaders want to you to vote for. Out go the press releases, RSS alerts, Twitter, blogs and social portal postings. You become engulfed in it. You can’t surf anywhere without it coming at you. Well, you can, but don’t worry; they’ll find you anyway and make sure you listen. As opposing sides pitch you why each respective side is right and the other is wrong, you wonder if they even remember what they represent you for in the first place. This onslaught of political news is ignored, absorbed and debated and the arguments and dilution of substance begins. Often it can be ugly at one extreme to complete blandness at the other.  Politicians rarely remember which side of the bed they woke up on, why should it be any different trying to get a bill passed on the floor of the legislature?

What some leaders are starting to realize is that if they are not careful, their constituents will tune out. So far that’s not holding true, with the majority of western world eligible voters having access to the internet and having an email address or a cell phone with a data plan. Most troubling for elected officials are secondary news sources that create perception beyond their editorial control. These secondary sources are your friends that pass on the news, as a tweet, email, blog or text message which are condensed and revised pieces of news. This audience tends to get engaged BECAUSE it came from a source they associate with. The future might hold that people create firewall or filter rules that prevent political messages getting to them, but rarely will they reject these secondary sources of news.

Reaction to government has moved from the lawns of universities and parks to the Internet.

Go to:
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4 in this series

November 9th, 2009

Northrop Grumman sells consulting firm in leveraged buy-out

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 9, 2009 @ 7:12 AM

Categories: Antitrust, E-government, Ethics, Government technology, Homeland security, ICT, IT Management, International, Telecom, Transportation

Tags: Northrop Grumman Corp., Consulting, TASC, Ronald D Sugar, Outsourcing, Operational Accounting, It Operations, Business Operations, Outsourcing & Subcontracting, Finance

Like the accounting industry, selling products and offering consulting services creates conflicts. Northrop Grumman offers both services to government agencies, particularly U.S. Homeland Security and the military.  The U.S. (and other countries) have new guidelines and regulations, resulting in Northrop Grumman announcing that it is selling its consulting group TASC.

Northrop Grumman, one of the largest suppliers to U.S. military has sold the division to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and the Atlantic Group for $1.65 billion.

Ronald D Sugar is notes that this is in the best interests of Grumman Northrop;

“

This transaction is in the best interest of Northrop Grumman’s customers, employees and shareholders,” said Ronald D. Sugar, chairman and chief executive officer. “It reflects Northrop Grumman’s desire to align quickly with the government’s new organizational conflict of interest standards, while preserving TASC’s unique organizational culture and its status as the advisory services employer of choice. TASC is a remarkable organization with a proud 43-year heritage of supporting critical national security missions. We are confident the investors understand the critical importance of its customers’ missions and the depth and sophistication of its employees’ expertise.”

TASC has revenues of $1.6 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year with the cash going to buy back its stock.

November 6th, 2009

Human x-ray machines: Coming soon to an airport near you

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 6, 2009 @ 5:00 AM

Categories: Canada, Congress, FAA, Government technology, Homeland security, Intelligence, International, Justice, Law enforcement, Privacy, Public health, Science, Security, Transportation, UK

Tags: U.S., Canada, Airport, Transportation, Security, Doug Hanchard

In the movie Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger (Gov. of California) runs through a security check point corridor operating using X-Ray technology. That film was released in 1990. Today that technology is being installed around the world at airports, border check points, marine ports and high risk security environments such as court buildings. They are currently being assessed or used in Canada, the U.S., U.K., Russia, Japan, and Australia. Some countries, such as India, have outright rejected them based on privacy and considered too offensive to passengers. Significant concern is being raised as to the long term medical impacts to humans going through the devices.

In Canada, the Canadian Air Transport Security Agency (CATSA) organization has completed some field trials at smaller airports (Kelowna, B.C.) and is looking to purchase a half dozen of the machines to continue further assessment. There are approximately 18 airports in the U.S. using them. In the U.K. several airports now have them including Manchester. Testing in several countries has been going since 2004. In the U.S. the Transportation Security Administration began field trials in 2007. The technology offers security details to process passengers quickly and determine if weapons or other contraband is on a person without doing physical body search. Such technology would significantly improve the detection of hidden materials. Read the rest of this entry »

October 15th, 2009

NSA to host Security Automation Conference

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ October 15, 2009 @ 8:07 AM

Categories: Conferences, Cyber Security, Government technology, Homeland security, Intelligence, Law enforcement, Network security, Security

Tags: U.S. Department Of Homeland Security, Conference, NIST, Automation, Security, Doug Hanchard

From October 26 - 29, the National Security Agency / Central Security Service will host the Security Automation Conference and Expo at the Baltimore Convention Center.

In their press release of October 2, key note speakers will be Tony Sager, NSA; Phil Reitinger, DHS; Richard Hale, DISA; and John Thompson, Symantec. Established by NIST five years ago with an attendance of less than 50 people, the conference is now jointly sponsored by NIST, NSA, DISA and the DHS. More than 1,000 attendees are expected at the conference.

To review the full agenda visit the NSA website.

October 23rd, 2008

DHS takes over flight lists from airports

Posted by Richard Koman @ October 23, 2008 @ 6:36 AM

Categories: Homeland security

Tags: U.S. Department Of Homeland Security, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Richard Koman, Productivity, Government, Security

Another black eye for the privatization of public tasks: The Department of Homeland Security is taking over from the airlines the job of checking airline passenger names against watch lists, The Washington Post reports.

Along with that change, passengers will be required to provide full name, birth date and gender (take no chances) before they will get a boarding pass. That’s actually a consumer protection — designed to reduce the number of false matches with listed persons with the same name.

“If you don’t provide the data, then you are going to put yourself in a position where you are probably going to be a selectee,” subject at a minimum to greater future security scrutiny, Secretary Chertoff said in remarks announcing the program at Reagan National Airport.

“We know that threats to our aviation system persist,” he said. Secure Flight “will increase security and efficiency, it’ll protect passengers’ privacy, and it will reduce the number of false-positive misidentifications.”

Mismatches have been a huge problem. Among those who have been blocked from flying because of name confusion: infants, Sen. Ted Kennedy and Catherine Stevens, wife of Sen. Ted Stevens (former pop singer Cat Stevens is on the no-fly list).

DHS has received more than 43,500 requests for redress since February 2007 and has completed 24,000 of them, with the rest under review or awaiting more documentation, TSA spokesman Christopher White said.

The government take-over mean DHS will apply the “most up-to-date list information and more sophisticated computer programs” to avoid sweeping innocent travellers up with the lists and avoid to need to give foreign carriers access to the lists.

The ACLU says the problem of DHS’s giant (400,000 names) terrorist list still remains.

DHS’s redress program “has proven to be a black hole that sucks in documents and information from those misidentified but never emits a final resolution to help affected travelers get off the lists and stay off the lists,” said Caroline Fredrickson, head of the ACLU Washington legislative office.

October 9th, 2008

H-1B visas rife with fraud, worker mistreatment

Posted by Richard Koman @ October 9, 2008 @ 10:52 AM

Categories: Homeland security

Tags: Visa, Loophole, Worker, Fraud, H-1B, Human Resources, Labor Relations, Richard Koman

Thirteen percent of petitions for H-1B visas filed on behalf of employers are fraudulent. That’s the conclusion of a report by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, BusinessWeek reports.

A key part of the fraud is loopholes that allow employers to mistreat employees.

. “We shouldn’t forget that the major problem with the H-1B program are caused by massive loopholes that allow firms to legally pay below-market wages and force US workers to train foreign replacements,” says Hira. “Those wouldn’t show up in this investigation because they are entirely legal.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (D-Iowa) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have sponsored a bill, S. 1035, to address fraud and legal loopholes in the program.

The idea that H-1B allows tech employers to hire the best minds from around the world is not the reality. The reality is that H-1B visas are dominated by Indian outsourcing companies like Infosys, Wipro and Tata.

October 7th, 2008

Report: Data-mining for terrorists doesn't work

Posted by Richard Koman @ October 7, 2008 @ 9:16 PM

Categories: Homeland security, Privacy

Tags: Terrorist, Terrorism, Homeland Security, Data Mining, Federal Government, Government, Enterprise Software, Software, Data Management, Richard Koman

After years of the federal government grabbing all the data it could find, building huge collections through which to data-mine for connections that would yield leads to terrorism suspects, a 352-page study released on Tuesday by a committee of the National Research Council warned that such goals “will be extremely difficult to achieve” because of legal, technological and logistical problems, The New York Times reports.

There is little evidence to confirm that the techniques work to actually find terrorists, despite the growing use in the last seven years, committee members said. Part of the problem, they said, is that the sample of known terrorists and actual attacks is so small that it is difficult to establish patterns of suspicious behavior.

What has NSA and DHS found through all this data? False positives and ruined lives.

“More data does not mean better data,” said William J. Perry, a former defense secretary and co-chairman of the panel.

September 18th, 2008

NY issues its RealID card

Posted by Richard Koman @ September 18, 2008 @ 5:16 AM

Categories: Homeland security, State & Local Govt

Tags: REAL ID, Card, New York, Times, RFID, Wireless, Security, Biometrics, Richard Koman

In a move that some fear as the harbinger of a national ID card, New York this week launched its version of the “enhanced” driver’s license, complete with RFID chip and good for land and sea crossings to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. It’s a “smart way to travel!” the state site boasts.

And to allay fears that personal information will be exposed to RFID sniffers, the state is sending the licenses out in a protective sleeve.
The Times files this as “function creep,” and EPIC for one has furiously opposed the consolidation of formerly disparate modes into one, easy-to-compromise device.

The Dept. of Homeland Security denies the cards will make it easy for bad guys to steal card bearers’ data. In a column published after the current regulations on Real ID, Secretary Chertoff wrote:

Your privacy truly is at stake in the REAL ID debate. But in my view, it’s the opponents of secure identification who pose the greatest risk. Without REAL ID, you are far more likely to endure one of the worst privacy violations — having your identity stolen.

We’ve detailed the states’ rebellion against the RealID requirements over the years. With New York’s RealID card, it seems clear the rebellion has passed.