Any volunteers to inform Congress? They are hiring: (surely they are some out work networking engineers available...) The Congressional Research Service is now accepting applications for the following two positions in its Resources, Science and Industry Division. Interested applicants must either apply online at www.loc.gov/crsinfo (preferred) or call (202) 707-5627 to request an applicant job kit. Please reference the appropriate vacancy number on all correspondence. Applications must be received by October 29, 2002. Specialist in Information and Telecommunication Engineering and Public Policy GS-15 ($92,060 - $119,682) - Vacancy #020233 This position will provide senior leadership and public policy expertise on issues related to telecommunications, networking, and government information policy, including information resources management, convergence, and broadband technologies. The specialist will assess the regulatory, legislative, economic and technical aspects of information and telecommunications technologies in a broad public policy context. Individuals with a policy/research background in telecommunications, engineering, economics, or law are strongly encouraged to apply. This is not an IT or technical position. ----- Original Message ----- From: Richard Forno <rforno@infowarrior.org> Date: Thursday, October 24, 2002 5:12 am Subject: Re: More federal management of key components of the Internet needed

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Why isn't it against the law to (s)Yell "FUD" at Congress ?

Wouldn't do any good, they don't know any better. Few if any Congresscritters are techno-literate -- I spent 3 years on the Hill, saw it first hand....and it's not gotten much better.

The only language most Congresscritters understand is $$$$ and how it relates to their staying elected by keeping their constituients somewhathappy and impressed with their performance.

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I don't understand how giving the US federal government management control of key components of the Internet will make it more secure.

<Sean's Rant about FBI info request removed>

Remember this is the same 'cybercrime agency' that when I-Love-Y0U was released, simply posted a NIPC warning saying "A New Virus Has Been Detected in the Philippenes." -- I was about to make sure my immunization recordswere up to date. Even after I called them from my NOC, and told them that the security community had already dissected the worm and there were sigs and coutnermeasures available, they didn't update the warning on NIPC.GOVfor like 5 hours.

A screenshot of that particular example of NIPC's expertise is immortalizedhere: http://www.infowarrior.or

Commentary I did about NIPC's warning capability is here, if you're interested. http://www.infowarrior.or

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And these are the people that are going to -=improve=- security ?

Hardly. They have a hard enough time passing information from one squad to another within the FBI, they're never going to be able to survive and interoperate in the Information Age against high-tech threats that move at packet speed. And don�t get me started about Infragard.....ugh...

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I think they should be focusing on terrorist activity, if you ask me.

Good idea, since they still haven't got that task down yet, either. Remember, the FBI - before and after its 2002 reorg - is, thanks to its internal culture, UNABLE to work well with outsiders, be they cops, the CIA, or ISP security teams. This has the unfortunate effect of severely torking those folks in the FBI that are intelligent and want to make a difference,but thanks to the system, their initiative is constrained by the 'status quo'. I feel sorry for some of these folks, they really do try, but the system there prevents them from being effective, thus partially explainingthe mess the FBI and NIPC is in at the moment in responding to terrorism or hacker threats.

re: The "DNS Attack" -- I'm hearing all this talk about DNS-on-CD that was some sort of research project that would be used during a loss of the roots. Anyone have any add'l info on what this is/was?

Cheers from DC,

Rick Infowarrior.org