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posted by n1 on Tuesday June 02 2015, @04:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the dr.-spin dept.

Cindy Cohn writes at EFF that when a criminal started lacing Tylenol capsules with cyanide in 1982, Johnson & Johnson quickly sprang into action to ensure consumer safety. It increased its internal production controls, recalled the capsules, offered an exchange for tablets, and within two months started using triple-seal tamper-resistant packaging. Congress ultimately passed an anti-tampering law but the focus of the response from both the private and the public sector was on ensuring that consumers remained safe and secure, rather than on catching the perpetrator. Indeed, the person who did the tampering was never caught.

According to Cohn the story of the Tylenol murders comes to mind as Congress considers the latest cybersecurity and data breach bills. To folks who understand computer security and networks, it's plain that the key problem are our vulnerable infrastructure and weak computer security, much like the vulnerabilities in Johnson & Johnson's supply chain in the 1980s. As then, the failure to secure our networks, the services we rely upon, and our individual computers makes it easy for bad actors to step in and "poison" our information. The way forward is clear: We need better incentives for companies who store our data to keep it secure. "Yet none of the proposals now in Congress are aimed at actually increasing the safety of our data. Instead, the focus is on "information sharing," a euphemism for more surveillance of users and networks," writes Cohn. "These bills are not only wrongheaded, they seem to be a cynical ploy to use the very real problems of cybersecurity to advance a surveillance agenda, rather than to actually take steps to make people safer." Congress could step in and encourage real security for users—by creating incentives for greater security, a greater downside for companies that fail to do so and by rewarding those companies who make the effort to develop stronger security. "It's as if the answer for Americans after the Tylenol incident was not to put on tamper-evident seals, or increase the security of the supply chain, but only to require Tylenol to "share" its customer lists with the government and with the folks over at Bayer aspirin," concludes Cohn. "We wouldn't have stood for such a wrongheaded response in 1982, and we shouldn't do so now."


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday June 02 2015, @04:41AM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Tuesday June 02 2015, @04:41AM (#191027) Homepage Journal

    I remember the Tylenol event. As far as Congress went, it was all too typical:

    - Something happens that is *already* illegal (ya know, killing people)

    - The one party who can actually do something about it, does so - the manufacturer ramping up their product security.

    - Role for Congress here? None.

    But politicians see a media storm, and they're like drug addicts: they've just got to get some of that limelight for themselves. So they slap together some really bad legislation that address a problem that doesn't even exist; they hold lots of public speeches that demonstrate that they have zero understanding of the actual issues; and at the end of the day? Funny, the government has more power, the people have fewer rights, and Congresscritters have new opportunities for graft political donations.

    It was exactly the same after 9/11. Crashing aircraft into building full of people was already illegal, all the clues needed to notice the terrorists had actually been found (but ignored) by the intelligence services, and Congress...passes the Patriot Act, creates the TSA, founds Homeland Security, and authorizes military action all over the Middle East for the next decade.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
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