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Why Hyping Cyber Threats is Counterproductive
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/11/why_hyping_cybe.html
For many austerity-hit Western countries, the defence budget has been a prime target for significant cuts. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the United States. Yet one element of the Pentagon’s budget continues to grow: cyber. High-profile security breaches at the corporate level and reports of cyber-espionage at the national level seemingly justify the vast sums involved in ensuring cyber-security. However, Robert M Lee and Thomas Rid argue that ‘cyber-angst’ is damaging – and self-serving. In this article, they list thirteen reasons why such cyber-security hype is counterproductive.
[Paper]: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03071847.2014.969932
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Thursday November 13 2014, @07:38PM
A cabal of military insiders created a new four-start general (ain't many of them, and even fewer new ones) and a new bailiwick for command out of absolutely nothing over the past few years, using a lot of former military insiders who left and went into the private sector. The press helped them wage a scare campaign in 2010-12 which was remarkable in that the media talked about these experts with their role as former military or government officials, and never even mentioned the fact that they were currently employed by consulting companies to scare people into paying for "cyber" consulting. I think I saw one or two articles in three or four years, out of hundreds, that disclosed who these people were currently working for. And it's materially important information. I'm not even counting all the anonymous sources the NY Times quoted. We don't know who they were or why they were leaking information. The result of this scaremongering was "cyber command" with an apparently unlimited budget and a whole independent chain of command. As a bonus, the new command brought other commands under itself.
For the military, this was an amazing coup. This campaign to create a new four-star general and all the people under him from nothing rivals anything Napoleon ever did on the battlefield. You've got to respect their accomplishments, even if you think the whole "cyber" thing is a boondoggle and an infinite waste of money.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)