GNU/Linux

Cyber Command Pursues Perfect Citizen

Web: Wikipedia, United States Cyber Command

Originally Published September 21, 2009; Last Updated August 11, 2010; Last Republished August 07, 2010:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski expresses support (.1M pdf) for an free and open Internet:

Genachowski went on to outline six principles required for Internet "net neutrality":

• unimpeded access to lawful
  
  • content;
  • applications; and
  • services;
• ability to attach non-harmful devices to the network (extend Internet)—devices are then controlled by the six principles;
• non discrimination based on packet content or type; and
• transparent ISP network management practices.

Res:

• UPDATED 10/20/2009 FCC, Open Internet Dot Gov

Web:

• UPDATED 08/07/2010 A NYT article caused a mild Internet-infarction when it reported that Google and Verizon were coming to terms on a selective tiered traffic deal.

  Temporary stabilization followed denials by Google (and Verizon):

  "We've not had any convos with VZN about paying for carriage of our traffic."--Google--

  NetWorld and Reuters are reporting that the FCC has called off opaque talks with major ISPs. The FCC sought to reassure concerned netizens that it's still committed to and pursing fundamental net neutrality principles.

  Save the Internet and other groups representing concerned netizens are remaining vigilant.

• UPDATED 10/24/2009 Reuters, McCain Moves to Block FCC Net Neutrality.

  Nice to know the Arizona Republican senator is at least now aware of the Internet.

  Wonder what it means that his legislation that's aimed at throttling the Internet is captioned "Internet Freedom Act of 2009" [thomas link will be provided when available]?

  The senator misperceives or mischaracterizes Net Neutrality if he thinks it means a government take-over of the Internet.

  Net Neutrality means all ip-packets (internet protocol packets) moving at maximum speed with a minimum of friction and zero gates, tolls or throttles.

• UPDATED 10/20/2009 Top tech firms back net-neutrality rules. The FCC is scheduled to meet on Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 10am; Preserving the Open Internet; Broadband Industry Practices (WC Docket No. 07-52).

Blog:

• UPDATED 08/11/2010 ProPublica, More on Net Neutrality: Parsing Through Google and Verizon’s ‘Policy Announcement’.

• UPDATED 10/20/2009 STI, Top Tech CEOs and Pioneers: Net Neutrality Essential for Innovation.

  Posting includes a link to a letter supporting net-neutrality, co-signed by five of the seminal internet communications and protocol original thinkers (Vinton G. Cerf, Stephen D. Crocker, David P. Reed, Lauren Weinstein, Daniel Lynch).

• Wired Epicenter, FCC Backs Net Neutrality — And Then Some

Originally Published August 08, 2008; Last Updated July 19, 2010; Last Republished July 19, 2010:

FCC orders (86K pdf) Comcast to cease wrongfully discriminating against certain types of Internet traffic¹.

Net neutrality principles prevent Telecom, Cable, and other internet service providers from wrongfully preferring some Internet data packets over others—they can't act like a postal worker deciding which first class letters to deliver to you and when to deliver them.

Res:

• UPDATED 06/18/2010 FCC, FCC to Seek Best Legal Framework for Broadband Internet Access

Web:

• UPDATED 07/19/2010 Reuters, U.S. said to toughen up broadband deployment report.

  More when the report is released...

• UPDATED 05/05/2010 Reuters, Regulators to reassert broadband regulation.
• UPDATED 04/11/2010 NYT Op-Ed, An Internet for Everybody. Reclassify the Internet as "telecommunications services," rather than "information services", say former special assistant to President Obama for science, technology and innovation policy, Susan Crawford.
• Save the Internet

Blog: Washington Times, FCC vote backs Net neutrality

-----notes-----

1. Comcast was throttling certain types of P2P traffic, typically related to bit torrents, a distributed file sharing protocol for transmitting a large numbers of data packets.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is celebrating 20 years of pioneering defenses of digital freedoms in our still evolving digital domain.

The short cartoon is by Nina Paley who will host a screening of her award winning "Sita Sings the Blues" for the benefit of EFF and others, on July 20, 2010 at 7 pm.

Originally Published July 04, 2010; Last Updated July 07, 2010; Last Republished July 04, 2010:

Today America celebrated its officially recognized day of independence, July 04, 2010.

Web: UPDATED 07/07/2010 UPI Photos, Fourth of July celebration

UPDATED 08/18/21010 Comments have been disabled.
UPDATED 08/14/21010 Comments have been enabled.

Comments have been temporarily disabled pending the passing of a sustained and focused spam attack.

Originally Published October 31, 2009; Last Updated June 08, 2010; Last Republished June 08, 2010:

Nations are beginning their foray into the "weaponization" or "militarization" of our open Internet and will continue unless stopped.

Some steps we can take:

• First, prohibit by international convention the weaponization or militarization of our Internet.

  The warriors can roll-out and use their own independent networks or better yet learn to stop fighting; and

• Second, begin developing a working knowledge of our Internet's infrastructure and terminology; and

• Third, begin all your Internet security discussions with a crystal clear and detailed understanding of what "asset" is proposed for protection. You will often discover a ton of security is proposed to secure zero or one gram of assets.

  If the "asset protection" discussion or analysis cannot take place transparently and in public, as our warriors will often assert, then the asset does not belong on our Internet.

• Fourth, develop a working understanding of the trade-offs between an open and secure Internet.

  Seek a minimum level of security and maximum level of openness; and

• Fifth, do not accept as inevitable the weaponization or militarization of our Internet.

  Our warriors are moving to our open Internet because it's relatively cheap warfare.

  But it does not follow that we must therefore permit them to harden, ruggedize, or close our Internet. We can boot the warriors off our Internet.

Web:

• UPDATED 06/08/2010 Some reassuring words among a lot of not so reassuring words from the Commander of CyberCom. We need the logic for ensuring non-infringing missions, in addition to the top-level reassuring words:

  "...We will partner with all departments and agencies. We will actively engage all branches of government. And we will exercise our powers and responsibilities under laws and ways designed to ensure that we are truly protecting, not infringing, the privacy and civil liberties of our fellow citizens...."--General Keith B. Alexander speaking @ CSIS on June 03, 2010--

  Hopefully the General was engaging in self-deprecating humor when saying he's a general not a reader.

  Whether the General reads or not he likely knows that network security is primarily a function of hardware architecture; protocol definition and implementation; well structured, written, and configured software; and experienced and capable system and network engineers and administrators (Army roaming not required or desired).

  Telling us that DoD's has seven million machines behind 15,000 networks that are probed 250,000 times per hour is only to hint at exposure.

  Generally (weak pun) it's not the probes you can count that are the problem—making sure you're detecting and thus counting all the probes is a significant challenge.

• UPDATED 06/06/2010 Reuters, U.S. faces remote sabotage cyber danger: general

  Operating, maintaining, and building secure nodes for some critical Internet infrastructure does not require providing our military components free roam of our Internet!

  "...our Department of Defense must be able to operate freely and defend its resources in cyberspace,..."--National Security Agency/Central Security Service Director General Keith B. Alexander--

  Wonder what "its resources in cyberspace" means—what exactly is our new Cyber Command's operational mission, domain, authority, and procedures?

• UPDATED 04/15/2010 NYT, Cyberwar Nominee Sees Gaps in Law and SASC, Lieutenant General Keith B. Alexander

  "...mismatch between our technical capabilities to conduct operations and the governing laws and policies."--Lieutenant General Keith B. Alexander--

  So..., what's the punch line general?

  Is the general asserting there should exist parity between our military technical capability and law or policy? Or is the general complaining that law and policy is throttling the military, as it often is intended to do. Or ?

  • UPDATED 04/27/2010 EPIC, EPIC v. NSA.

    EPIC has filed a FOIA request for Alexander's heavily redacted written responses to senator's questions.

• UPDATED 03/05/2010 Wired ThreatLevel, White House Cyber Czar: ‘There Is No Cyberwar’

  White House cyber-czar Howard Schmidt calls cyber-war an unfortunate metaphor; so is cyber-czar and white house.

• UPDATED 03/03/2010 Wired ThreatLevel, U.S. Declassifies Part of Secret Cybersecurity Plan and WH, The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative
• UPDATED 12/13/2009 NYT, In Shift, U.S. Talks to Russia on Internet Security and UPI, U.S., Russia discuss cybersecurity.

• UPDATED 12/04/2009 EPIC, EPIC Files Appeal for NSA Policy on Network Surveillance.

  Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is seeking FOIA disclosure of National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 54, Cyber Security and Monitoring dated January 08, 2008.

  EPIC's FOIA request is in the administrative appeal stage and will likely end up on the EPIC FOIA Litigation Docket.

• UPDATED 11/18/2009 Government Information Security, Einstein 3 Privacy Concerns Voiced

Some Useful Terms to Know (from US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Report on the Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation (1M pdf)):

Read more »

Let us remember too that our young guardians are currently dying in two discretionary conflicts—let our policymakers immediately cease these discretionary conflicts and stop bring our guardians home in coffins.

YouTube:

• History of Memorial Day

Web: UPI Pictures, Memorial Day 2010 Highlights

Originally Published April 28, 2008; Last Updated May 27, 2010; Last Republished May 27, 2010:

Walter Bender is leaving OLPC while Nicholas Negroponte pushes on to ensure children in third world countries have access to no cost or very low cost computing and networked devices.

It remains unclear whether OLPC's original design decision to exclusively use the GNU/Linux OS and AMD's microprocessor has been co-opted or compromised? If so, to what degree?

Web:

• UPDATED 05/27/2010 SFGate, One Laptop Per Child's next move: the $100 tablet.

  One Laptop morphing into One Tablet—different hardware same fundamental goal.

• UPDATED 04/18/2010 NYT, Two Billion Laptops? It May Not Be Enough
• UPDATED 05/20/2008 AP, Laptop-for-children program to resume sales to donors
• UPDATED 05/15/2008 '$100 laptop' nonprofit now teamed with Microsoft

Blog:

• UPDATED 05/16/2008 Bender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI
• Guardian Unlimited Technology Blog