ITU Workshop on Critical Network Infrastructure Over

Our workshop in Seoul, Korea has finished today and it was a nice success. Lots of thought provoking ideas on how to globally improve information systems security and network infrastructure protection. Korea has been an excellent place to hold the workshop as they have made tremendous progress here on the technical, policy, legislative and enforcement fronts. There was a much consensus that there was a need for better international standards and implementation, information sharing, halting cyber-attacks in progress, coordinating legal systems, and providing assistance to developing countries. The workshop site is being updated with the papers and presentations made during the last two and a half days. The Chairman's report should also be available there shortly.

9:40:11 AM    Google It!    

Security in the News

Senate panel OKs security standards. A bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee would require federal departments and agencies to adhere to security standards, a proposal opposed by tech industry groups. [CNET News.com]

9:01:03 AM    Google It!    

Echelon

Dr. Steven Bryen  of Aurora Defense presented at our workshop that closed today a paper entitled A Collective Security Approach To Protecting The Global Critical Infrastructure. The paper makes a brief mention of Echelon and it was interesting to run across this article published on Cyrptome that recently appeared in the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet. It reports to be an interview with one of the architects of Echelon II.

8:06:39 AM    Google It!    

Open Source and the Security of Nations

Proponents of the open source software movement have found a new hero in Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez, Congressman in Peru. In his letter to the General Manager of Microsoft, Peru, concerning a pending bill on "Free Software in Public Administration", he makes some convincing and eloquent arguments, particularly, in my opinion, vis-à-vis the security of nations:

"To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*."

There's an interesting follow-up article at Linux Today.

4:35:26 AM    Google It!