CONGRESS IS HELLBENT on passing a cybersecurity bill that can stop the wave of hacker breaches hitting American corporations. And they’re not letting the protests of a few dozen privacy and civil liberties organizations get in their way.
On Wednesday the House of Representatives voted 307-116 to pass the Protecting Cyber Networks Act, a bill designed to allow more fluid sharing of cybersecurity threat data between corporations and government agencies. That new system for sharing information is designed to act as a real-time immune system against hacker attacks, allowing companies to warn one another via government intermediaries about the tools and techniques of advanced hackers. But privacy critics say it also threatens to open up a new backchannel for surveillance of American citizens, in some cases granting the same companies legal immunity to share their users’ private data with government agencies that include the NSA.
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/house-passes-cybersecurity-bill-despite-privacy-protests/
[Related]: http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/239592-white-house-supports-house-cyber-bills-with-reservations
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2015, @01:33AM
Cyberpunk dystopia, here we come! ...yay?
(Score: 5, Informative) by SrLnclt on Friday April 24 2015, @01:48AM
Here's how everyone voted on H.R. 1560 [house.gov], the Protecting Cyber Networks Act and H.R. 1731, the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act of 2015. I hope a few of us remember this list next time your congressman/congresswomen is up for reelection.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by davester666 on Friday April 24 2015, @08:12AM
Here's the thing.
You need WAY more than "a few of us".
You need thousands and thousands of people to all vote of someone else. Even more if the vote is split between two other people.
This thing ain't gonna do it. Maybe if they passed a 'king for a day' bill, where your elected senator and/or congressperson can, for one 24 period per year, go from door to door fucking whomever they want, however they want, and the person can't say no. Maybe.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by anubi on Friday April 24 2015, @02:05AM
So we seem to be hell-bent about keeping the pranksters from setting fire to our wood-shack outhouses?
Ever considered building the outhouse out of cinder block?
I have pontificated here a lot of times... all its going to take to have a trustworthy system is to get rid of "hold harmless" clauses in exchange for copyright protection. As long as those hold harmless clauses are in effect, no one can even read web pages or informational files ( flash, .doc, whatever ) without risk of malware.
Even further weakening interests in a secure internet is not going to help one iota...
Wagging Congressional pens at it isn't going to do anything. We are just acting like the angry farmer wagging his pitchfork in the air after having his outhouse set ablaze. The pranksters will return just as soon as the farmer builds a new outhouse just for the fun of it.
Think any of our Congressmen have the balls to stand up to some big corporations and tell them they are responsible for the misery caused by their mixing executables into data? Or will we forever be hampered with vulnerabilities to malware by just opening a business document to read?
All we are doing now is having Congressional heads erupting with hot air waving pens around like an angry farmer wagging his pitchfork. Completely impotent, but done for theater, as well as someone else's entertainment.
I also am very leery of "hidden" processes that can't be "unhidden". A trustworthy system has to be completely inspectable and verifiable.
I see Congress coming across as a herd of completely impotent gasbags, thinking their pens are going to solve this problem... dammit, its their pens that have created this problem!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]