Re: Ready to get your federal computer license?

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>]

On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:46:19 -0400 (EDT)
Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com> wrote:

> On Sun, 30 Aug 2009, Jeff Young wrote:
> > The more troubling parts of this bill had to do with the President,
> > at his discretion, classifying parts of public networks as "critical
> > infrastructure" and so on.
>
> Whatever your opinion, get involved.  Let your representatives know
> about your better ideas.

I strongly second this.  To quote a bumper sticker/slogan I've seen,
"if you didn't vote, you shouldn't complain".  Some prominent
politicians have proposed something that we -- including me -- believe
to be a bad idea, not just on ideological grounds but because we think
that it won't accomplish its purported goals and may even be
counterproductive.  I don't see a lot of network operators in Congress
-- if you know better, you really need to tell them.

Some folks on this list -- and I know there are a few, very
specifically including myself -- spend more than a little bit of time
not just worrying about public policy issues, but actually spending
time and effort on the subject.  (I'm in D.C. right now, largely
because of a policy-related meeting on Tuesday.)  I'll misuses a
security slogan I've seen on mass transit facilities in the New York
area: if you see something, say something.  If no one tells Congress
that this is a bad idea, how should they know?
> > currently living overseas and finding all of this very amusing...
>
> If any other country has solved the problem of protecting
> Internet/data/cyber/critical/etc infrastructures and have some great 
> ideas, it would be great to hear what those ideas are and how they
> did it.
Indeed.

                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb