POLICY: December 2009 Archives

The White House has taken the unusual step of wading into a dispute between DHS and the FBI over how much terrorist-threat information should be shared with state and local law enforcement, according to officials.  Issues revolve around the continuing investigation of Afghan-born Zazi after he allegedly tried to build bombs with "large quantities" of hydrogen peroxide purchased at beauty shops in the Denver area.  READ MORE

The presidential task force on Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) this week concluded that Executive Branch performance suffers immensely from interagency inconsistency in Sensitive but Unclassified (SBU) terrorism-related information policies.

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The United States House of Representatives took a major step in early December'09 toward enacting a national data breach notification law.

H.R. 2221, the Data Accountability and Trust Act (DATA), cleared the House with a voice vote. In its current form, DATA requires businesses to notify customers and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) if sensitive information has been exposed to a security breach. READ MORE

The White House has released a new National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats.  The Strategy emphasizes the need to (1) improve global access to the life sciences to combat infectious disease regardless of its cause; (2) establish and reinforce norms against the misuse of the life sciences; and (3) institute a suite of coordinated activities that collectively will help influence, identify, inhibit, and/or interdict those who seek to misuse the life sciences.

White House Press Release

Download the Strategy

The Repository for Industrial Security Incidents (RISI), a database of cybersecurity attack shows that number of cybersecurity attacks against computer networks that operate the nation's critical infrastructure such as transportation systems and water treatment and power plants, has increased dramatically.  In the third quarter of 2009, 11 cyber incidents were added to the database.  READ MORE

RISI Analysis Report

The network systems administrator at the Higley (Arizona) Unified School District's technology department was recently fired for installing the SETI@home software, a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The SETI@home software downloads and analyzes radio telescope data from the SETI Institute.  The school district contends the software was installed on over 5,000 computers and over an almost ten year period cost the district over $1 million in utility costs and associated hardware replacement costs.   READ MORE

There are a growing number of public, distributed processing software programs like SETI@home.  You might want to check your system to see if it is being impacted.

SETI

SETI@home