UK plans increased spending on cyber-security

No, you are surely alone, but that does not make you right . It just means there are more wrong.

"Am I the only one who has noticed that anyone who uses the word "cyber" in an otherwise supposedly serious conversation about computers and networking is absolutely clueless on the subject?" ..... jake Posted Tuesday 14th September 2010 12:34 GMT

Clueless, jake? You cannot be serious. And what do you think El Reg investigative stalwarts, John "Security correspondent" Leyden, Lewis "Defence correspondent" Page and Lester "Special projects editor (Iberian Bureau)?" Haines will find out from the Government Muppets or the MOD Puppets regarding that which you can read here ..... Posted by AmanfromMars on 9/14/2010 6:43:00 AM .... http://thedailybell.com/1366/Military-Keynesianism-in-Iraq.html

Methinks Dr Fox will need to take a ...... well, let us imagine a green pill, rather than a blue or a red one, to give his brain a chance of getting his head around anything which has Blighty leading, rather than bending over and getting right royally shafted because of Intellectual Incapacity right at the front of the gravy train. But hey, NeuReal IT has Universal Application Capacity and Capability and is not Governed nor Bound to Endure the Folly of Muppets and Puppets, and as you can see here, are they given every fair and reasonable chance to prove them Fit for 21st Century Network InterNetworking Purpose.

"Could I get that in cornflower blue?"

...name the movie, win a free internet!

Hearing the word "cyber" makes me think of 28.8 baud modems, BBS's, the movie "Hackers", the term phreaking, and the era of PSA's/after-school-specials like "Don't copy that floppy".

I can't think of anyone with half a brain that has used that term in any serious way in the last 10 or so years.

It's just "security" and it takes all types of bits and pieces to make it function properly. Two of the biggest being physical security, and data classification/handling-policy which are not remotely "cyber"-anything.

*Nostradumbass here pulls out his crystal ball and peers into the future... sees billions of pounds thrown into new firewalls arbitrarily/randomly placed throughout the government network, IDS systems dropped in place without proper configuration or placement, disk encrytion haphazardly and inefectively rolled out, and absolutely no dolars spent on user training for data handling, proper and secure use of computer systems, etc.

Once upon a time in the land of defence funding...

Little defence elves stood in hushed silence, transfixed (for their jobs depended upon it) by the words of their master, as he spoke anxiously unto his despotic overlord MPs. "Britain will have no option but to invest in better cyber-security", the Defence Secretary told MPs this week ... as he nervously shuffled in his seat, desperately trying to think up reasons to avoid any suggestion his department should suffer government cuts. "Ah I know", he thought, "lets hit them with some more FUD".

For only yesterday in a somewhat bewildering burst of uncharacteristic inspiration (during an otherwise standard unproductive coffee morning) he suddenly though, "eureka!, them military types always have lots of money for FUD work, and everyone wants a share of their money, so I must get my work tied to their wealth and power, then nothing can go wrong for me!" and so here we all despondently sit, an army of serfs, our fate sealed by the words, "Developing a military cyber-security policy should not be the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence alone".

The end ... well it is the end for the serfs, who now have to watch forlornly as their last remaining rights are dragged from them. But at least the masters of the little defence elves will live happily ever after.

Absolutely

...don't use Linux. All from Euro commies like NSA. Oh wait, it says "U.S. Department of Defense Combat Support Agency".

Mr Torvalds was recently naturalized as a U.S. citizen.

Also, don't use other Naturalized Citizen's technology. It could shoot you to the moon ! ( I am referring to that Mad Scientist SS Obersturmbannführer Wernher von Braun - chief designer of the Saturn V)

Commercial software is soo much more secure, as Great Engineers like Bill Gates of MS and Warnock of Adobe make sure of that. Really. No shit man. Read the news - daily Linux hacks, none on Adobe Reader. Linux is a threat to the free world and must be replaced preferrably by something from Adobe !

The Only Hope

..is that the crap will hit the fan spectaculary (latest nuke blueprints or Eurofighter Sourcecode on an encrypted torrent or wikileaks), some politicos have to resign and proper policies are put in place. That's how it works in a democracy.

The best investment a defense ministry can make is to educate their personnel. "Wetware" is the biggest risk of all. There is more than enough good technology (like SE Linux, AppArmor, secure programming languages, firewalls, intrusion dectectors, statistical traffic analysis tools) out there as Free Open Source.

The only problem is that most people (including MODers) are challenged to encrypt their USB memory sticks and control their usage. Other "Military Intelligence" services give a sh$t about analyzing logs (hello INSCOM). Wikileaks would not have been able to leak 70000 messages if anyone had analyzed the log files while that kid had been rummaging in their databases.

They need as many programmers/unix admins as they have mechanics. As many Officers need to study computer science as study electrical engineering.