Network Oversight
One of the biggest problems with “cyber security” is that it requires having trained people watching the system and detecting problems.
My hosting company does it. They have a trouble report up at their separate site almost immediately when a problem is detected, and they keep you updated on what is going on to fix the problem.
My large, corporate, telco ISP on the other hand, waits for end users to notify them that there is a problem with the system. They rather obviously don’t have anyone monitoring traffic flow on their system, or they would be immediately aware when a segment of it drops out.
I was on the phone for an hour around midnight last night, most of it on hold listening to disco, so I could report the outage in my area. I’ve dealt with them long enough to know that they aren’t aware of problems until there is a user report, and if I didn’t report it last night, it is unlikely that anything would have been done until Monday, after people discovered that the ‘Net was down Sunday morning and called.
People are talking about how “hackers are going to control the electrical grid” when the grid isn’t even connected to the Internet, and, next to large weather events, the biggest threat to the electrical grid are drunks driving SUVs.
5 comments
Yeah… really! We have similar problems here. 😉 My current ISP/telco (reseller) is one of the best I’ve ever been with! But moving to the country in a couple weeks will probably mean that I’ll be forced to sign up with Telstra. So, if you don’t see me for a month, you know why.
As far as cyber security goes… The US Military’s record is looking pretty shabby. 😉
Turkish hackers breach US Army servers, says report
The attacker(s) apparently used a fairly straightforward SQL injection attack, which is also fairly easy to protect against (by a competent sys admin). 🙂 I’d send them my Resume… but the couldn’t possibly pay me enough to fix their mess. 😆
Yeah… I’m still laughing. 😉
Ahhhh…. I just gotta post this! LMAO
Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology
Now… It it would be possible to boost people’s IQ to higher than their shoe size so that they would notice a blatant fraud when they have their bank accounts cleaned out by crooks like Scientology, Mormons… and the rest of the endless list (pretty much every group that uses the word ‘Religion’ in it’s title or screed)… Maybe the World would be a better place.
And for G*ds sake… *STOP* calling these bloody crooks a ‘Church’! At the very least, the retarded US Gov could well do with the tax revenues! Sheesh. Heck, they’d probably make enough to bail out GM! 😉 😆
People, generally, really are idiots.
The government should have a separate host for the public Internet sites that could be monitored and maintained like any other hosting service. The only thing on the host should be public data.
That’s the easiest way of controlling the problem and protecting data.
There are intragovernmental networks for sensitive information with the lowest classification, or you could require IP address restrictions on access to use HTTPS links over the ‘Net. There are a lot of ways of protecting things that can be implemented after you pull the public content off the systems and centralize it on a public host with 24/7 monitoring and regular back-ups.
The guys at Wikipedia caught the Scientology dingbats massaging the articles, and that is a no-no. There is a challenge protocol in place, and dispute resolution process, You will be banned if you don’t use it, no matter who you are. I’ve used it several times over vandalism, and it is not that difficult.
disco… disco… disco duck!
😈
hipparchia´s last blog post..[for reference]
It was hell, Hipparchia, nearly an hour of audio hell.