Re: President Should Have 'Kill Switch' For Internet, Most Americans Say

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

Forwarded from: Richard Forno <rforno (at) infowarrior.org>

In this case, the question was framed as "ZMGWHATIFTHEWORSTCASEHAPPENS" 
-- so of course you'll get a lot of folks responding from a position of 
extreme fear and not rational analysis.  It all comes down to how you 
phrase the question.

A scene from "Yes Prime Minister" demonstrates the ease in which surveys 
can be generated to skew results toward a given position: See:  
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086831/quotes

On a (hopefully) unrelated note, this survey was done by Unisys, a large 
federal IT contractor.

-- rick


On Oct 29, 2010, at 02:43 , InfoSec News wrote:

> http://www.darkreading.com/insiderthreat/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228000253
>
> By Kelly Jackson Higgins
> DarkReading
> Oct 28, 2010
>
> More than 60 percent of Americans say if a major cyberattack were to 
> occur on the Internet, the president should have the capability to 
> shut down parts of the network, according to a new survey.
>
> Around 80 percent of Americans also say they are limiting access to 
> their personal information and using privacy settings on Facebook and 
> other social media, and 73 percent are keeping their antivirus 
> up-to-date. But they are less vigilant about their mobile devices, 
> with only 37 percent password-protecting these devices, according to 
> Unisys' Security Index survey for the second half of 2010, released 
> this week. And about 46 percent of these users regularly update and 
> use strong passwords for their desktop machines.
>
> "With only 37 percent using passwords on mobile devices, it's probably 
> because people are looking for convenience," says Patricia Titus, vice 
> president and chief information security officer at Unisys. "People 
> are not applying the same security practices to mobile devices as they 
> do to PCs and laptops. And in some instances, these [mobile devices] 
> are more powerful."
>
> As for the "kill switch" support, Titus says respondents could be 
> interpreting what that might entail in different ways. "They might not 
> be thinking about what the implications would mean .. they might be 
> thinking of him blocking a particular country [or attackers]," she 
> says.
>
> [...]
>
>
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___________________________________________________________      
Tegatai Managed Colocation: Four Provider Blended
Tier-1 Bandwidth, Fortinet Universal Threat Management,
Natural Disaster Avoidance, Always-On Power Delivery 
Network, Cisco Switches, SAS 70 Type II Datacenter. 
Find peace of mind, Defend your Critical Infrastructure.
http://www.tegataiphoenix.com/