IP: a very brief report on the Conference on National Security

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

On Feb 28 to Mar 1, I attended the Conference held at the Air Force Academy
(AFA) in Colorado Springs. It was attended by about 90 people mainly from
the military with rather senior people (Generals, Deputy Secs of Defenses,
Deputy Attorney General), a very few outside academics, a few very senior
industrial folk, some AFA faculty and an amazingly good set of Cadets.


First let me emphasize the quality of the Cadets. They are dedicated and
well educated and very open. They are far from  diffident in asking hard
questions even to 4 stars.


The organizer Prof. Jim Mccarthy (Retired 4 star) did the most impressive
job I have ever seem of moving a meeting on time and with style. 


The proceedings of the meeting will be made available after the presenters
have a chance to edit their work. It was all transcribed and recorded
(video). The rules of the game were non attribution prior to the publication
and it resulted in a free wheeling open discussion. Due to this I am limited
in saying very much but will make sure that IP will get the highlights in
the future.


In general the subject matter ranged over Information Warfare -- defensive
and offensive, questions of the ethics of possible severe damage to a
national infrastructure and it's people, SoftWar (PsycWar) with a
sensational panel of one of the founders of CNN, the Director of USIA  and
others. How do you know when the nation is under attack? There was even a
panel on privacy (crypto) with your Editor, Denning, and the Assoc Director
of NSA. 


The quality of our officials and officers is impressive. I am not a  always
a fan of the military and some government activities but I must admit these
people are top notch and do what they believe is for the national benefit.


The only downer I had was the inclusion every time some folk (lawyers from
the Gov) talked about network problems they inserted the key "we must have
laws to stop child pornography on the net". I would then stand up and give
what became my standard comment "we have enough laws already -- leave the
bill of rights alone". By the way I wore my blue ribbon (the only one who
did) and got many questions -- all polite and many "I am happy to see you
wear it".


There was an interesting comment about me by several people -- they were
surprised that a engineer would be so social concerned.


Thats all for now. Time to think!!