Just Cut It Out

What a way to handle global leadership…all you have to say is,  just “Cut it out!” and your job is done. 

– Cyber attacking the U.S. democratic election, invasion of Crimea, and encroaching on NATO with nuclear capable missiles…just cut it out! 

– Vast destruction of Aleppo including hospitals, schools, and markets, killings, refugees, and humanitarian crisis, and the dangerous use of chemical weapons on civilians…just cut it out!

– China stealing our drone and militarizing the South China Sea…just cut it out!

– North Korea testing advanced nukes and ballistic missiles capable of reaching Europe and America and threatening to use them…just cut it out!

– Iran taking our sailors captive, humiliating them, buzzing our warships, and violating the nuclear arms deal…just cut it out!

– Abandoning our friends and allies and befriending our enemies sworn to kill us and not even being able to say the words, “Radical Islamist”…just cut it out!

– Spiraling divisiveness, rioting in our inner cities, and cycles of racial and police violence…just cut it out!

– An unsustainable Obamacare with double digit rising rates and decreasing insurance choices (many localities with only 1)…just cut it out!

– Doubling of the U.S. national debt by another $10 trillion and enacting regulations that are strangling business…just cut it out!

– Endless ISIS and other terrorist attacks (yesterday on Berlin, Zurich, Turkey and more) and calls it “workplace violence” or a traffic accident…just cut it out!

Anyone who says that now “We’re feeling what not having hope feels like,” truly must be referring to where we come from and not where we are going.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Why Can’t We Keep Our Secrets

Well after the now notorious email scandal and other information security mishaps galore, this advertisement in Washington, DC is really quite the rage. 

“Keeps classified data classified.”

As parents tell their children about keeping private things private:

“If you can’t keep it a secret, then how do you expect the other kids to keep it to themselves?”

There are lots of secrets in DC, but there are also a lot of big mouths, security negligence, and even corruption. 

This gives our adversaries the opportunities they need to get our countries vital information. 

We work too hard to develop the best intellectual property for national security and our economy as well as the critical policies for advancing human rights and democracy around the world to let it just be easy fodder for others to help themselves too. 

Technology won’t solve the gap in certain big mouths and sloppy Joes around town. 

Only vigilant, smart people can protect the nations vital information that is the fuel for our success and survival. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Losing Patience With Tech Progress

We’re so close yet so far…that’s my feeling as I grow ever impatient with the pace of technological progress. 

We have cloud computing, but still everyone has their own private computing setups everywhere. 

We have mobile computing, but still can’t get get reliable service in the Metro and all the other “dead zones.”

We have social computing, but still people are so cliquey and nasty and troll and bully each other online and off. 

We have the Internet of Things, but still things don’t really talk to each other regularly (except our smart meters).

We have robots, but still they’re relegated to factory assembly lines. 

We have natural language processing, but still can’t get a meaningful conversation going with Siri.

We have 3-D printing, but still can’t get dinner or a pair of Nikes to appear from the Star Trek like “Replicator.”

We have augmented and virtual reality headsets, but still can’t go anywhere with them without getting motion sickness.

We have biometrics, but still have to sign the check.

We have driverless cars, but still there is a driver inside. 

We have networks of information, but still it’s subject to hacking, malware, identity and data theft, and even big time EMP knockouts. 

We have immunotherapy, but still haven’t beaten cancer. 

We have nanotechnology, but still we travel through life loaded down with material possessions.

We have food and biotechnology, but still one in eight people are going hungry. 

We have space shuttles and stations, but still can’t get a colony going on Mars.

We have big data, but still information is corrupted by personal biases and politics. 

We have knowledge management, but still more than 780 million adults are illiterate. 

We have artificial intelligence, but still it’s devoid of emotional intelligence. 

We have bigger, deadlier, and more sophisticated weapons systems and smart bombs to “protect us”, but still are no closer to living in peace and brotherhood. 

All this technology and advancement is great, except that we’re left hungrier than ever for the realization of the promised technology land, and are really only halfway there, maybe. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Preppers Preparing

A very interesting article in the Washington Post on the prepper movement.

People are concerned about the inaction, misdirection, and chaos of where things are going, and they are preparing for a potential post-apocalyptic America and world.

Grave worries seem to be coming from a multitude of concerns whether about an eventual bursting of the bubble of our national debt and the downfall of our economy and associated good jobs, an outbreak of ebola or a deadly influenza, a dirty bomb by Iran or North Korea, a cyber attack or EMP that takes out our critical infrastructure including electricity and anything with computer circuits, or a devastating natural disaster, many of which are considered “overdue.”

The preppers are moving to the American Redoubt (pacific northwest–Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon.

They are buying and building defensible homes (bunkers and “fortresses”), stockpiling food, weapons, and ammunition, and preparing for life off the grid with water sources, solar farms, and secure storage.

While survivalists have always existed, the numbers of concerned, disaffected, and generally disgruntled citizens seems be growing exponentially along with prepper network shows, books, blogs, websites, and sales of survival gear.

Many people seem to either feel insecure, fearful, uncertain, or that we are simply going in the wrong direction, and that it is only a matter of time until there is some sort of major earth shattering, society destabilizing disaster, and not everyone will survive.

So from home shelters to luxury underground bunkers, preppers are putting their money and efforts where their mouths are, and are preparing for potentially the worst.

If as all agree that an important part of the government’s job is to ensure the national security of the country, and protect life, liberty, and property, then something seems to be going very wrong that many people are feeling so insecure and unprotected physically and in terms of their human rights.

From corruption to divisiveness, dependency, and dirty dealing, communication and trust between government and the governed is being needlessly undermined.

Why can’t we get some decent leaders with a solid moral compass, and a real plan to bring us back from forever walking the brink to a nation of strength and unity, prosperity and health, and a superpower not only today, but for the future, once again. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Modesty And Privacy Of Body and Information

So modesty and privacy is very important in terms of propriety and security.

Both are intimately connected. 

Already as children, we learn not to show or talk about our “privates” to others. 

And as adults, we understand that there are certain things about ourselves that we don’t just talk about or divulge to others indiscriminately. 

Not being discrete with these and showing either your private parts or your personal information can get you in a load of trouble by giving others the opportunity to take undue advantage of you. 

Both open you up to be ridiculed or even raped of your person or information identity. 

That which is yours to use with others in propriety is instead disclosed for taking out from your control and for use against you. 

Security demands modesty of body and of information, and if not taken seriously, then no amount of lame covering will keep that which is private from public consumption. 😉

Peace To All Mankind

I liked this post in downtown Washington, D.C. inscribed with the following:

“May Peace Prevail On Earth.”

It left me wondering, if Earth includes:

1) ISIS advances into large swathes of Syria and Iraq

2) Taliban attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan including the one that left 132 children dead in a Peshawar school last week.

3) Boko Haram kidnappings and killings in Nigeria including the hundreds of children taken and given as wives to their captors 

4) Al-Shabaab fighting in Somalia including attacks in the capital, Mogadishu

5) Hamas in Gaza and their barrage of rocket attacks on and terror tunnels into Israel

6) Hezbolah in Lebanon as a proxy for Iran-sponsored terror

7) Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and threats to annihilate Israel off the face of the map.

8) Russia in Ukraine and Georgia and ongoing threats to Eastern Europe/NATO.

9) China’s military build-up, including nukes, submarines, and anti-satellite weapons.

10) North Korea cyber attack on Sony and threatening “the White House, the Pentagon, and the whole U.S. mainland.”

Peace is more than a wish, right now it seems like a dream. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Dire Warnings On Cybersecurity

This week Adm. Michael Rogers, the Director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command issued a stark warning to the nation about the state of cybersecurity:

With our cybersecurity over the next decade, “It’s only a matter of the ‘when,’ not the ‘if,’ that we are going to see something dramatic.“

The Wall Street Journal reports that he gave ” a candid acknowledgement that the U.S. ISN’T yet prepared to manage the threat!”

China and “one or two others” [i.e. Russia etc.] are infiltrating our SCADA networks that manage our industrial control systems, including our power turbines and transmission systems,.

The cyber spies from the nation states are “leaving behind computer code that could be used to disable the networks  in the future.”

Can you imagine…you must imagine, you must prepare–not if, but when. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Data Like Clouds

So data is like clouds…

Clouds want to be free roaming the wild blue skies similar to how data wants to be searchable, accessible, useful, and so on. 

But with data, like clouds, when it rains it pours–and when data blows about with the windstorm and is compromised in terms of security or privacy, then we not only come away wet but very uncomfortable and unhappy. 

Then, as we actually end up putting our data in the great computing clouds of the likes of Amazon, iCloud, HP, and more, the data is just within arm’s reach of the nearest smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer. 

But just as we aspire to reach to the clouds–and get to our data–other less scrupled (cyber criminals, terrorists, and nation states)–seek to grab some of those oh so soft, white cloud data too.

While you may want to lock your data cloud in a highly secure double vault, unfortunately, you won’t be able to still get to it quickly and easily…it’s a trade-off between security and accessibility. 

And leaving the doors wide open doesn’t work either, because then no one even needs an (encryption) key to get in. 

So that’s our dilemma–open data, but secured storage–white, soft, beautiful clouds wisping overhead, but not raining data on our organizational and personal parades. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Newspaper, Identity Thief

So, true story.

I know identify theft is a serious matter, but really…

I’m heading out of the driveway and I see the newpaper delivery guy just pulling up.

He’s running a little late, but I figure I can still get the paper in time for morning reading on the Metro.

I walk over to him and ask if I can get the Journal that he’s deliverying to me.

He says, “No, I only deliver the Wall Street Journal and the Post.”

I say, “Yeah, the Wall Street Journal, can I get it, since you’re running a little late this morning.”

He says. “I’m never late!”–actually, he is and sometimes doesn’t deliver at all (the other week, I got 3 papers in one day).

I say, “OK, but I can take it from here.”

He says, “No, I only deliver to the door.”

I say, “But I’m right here.”

He says, “How do I know you are who you say you are?”

I say, “I am, and thank G-d, I really don’t need to steal a $2 newspaper from you, Sir.”

He says, “Okay, but I’ll need to see an id!”

I say, “Are you serious?”

He says, “Yeah,” pulling back to safety the pile of newspapers he is holding is his arms.

Reluctantly, I flip open my wallet and flash my license to him.

Not good enough…he insists I take it out so he can read it.

I finally got the paper, but we wasted what seemed like 5 minutes between the negotiation and proof of identity exercise.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate his diligence, but I think this type of scrutiny over access and identity would be better placed squarely on our cyber assets–somewhere where we really need them! 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal

National State Of Cyber Insecurity

This video is a wake up call on the state of our national cyber insecurity.

It is the opening statement (about 6 minutes) of Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of Oversight, Investigations, and Management.

What he describes is quite grave and every American should listen carefully about the state of our cyber insecurity that poses a real and significant threat to our economy and national security.

We are under attack by cyber criminals, terrorists, and hostile nation states.

Our adversaries seek to and can paralyze our critical infrastructure, steal our intellectual property, conduct espionage, and access our personal and financial information.

The collapse of our military networks, financial system, energy, transportation, and electricity “is not science fiction.”

The cyber attacks are “real, stealth, and persistent, and can devastate our nation.”

It is “not a matter of if, but when a Cyber Pearl Harbor will occur.”

And “we have been fortunate that up until this point that cyber attacks on our country have not caused a cataclysmic event.”

I read from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (2011) that cybersecurity has taken a back seat after 9/11 to the War on Terror as well as the economic fight after the recession of 2008, with the result that “the United States is unprepared to defend itself.”

Chairman McCaul critically states at the end of his opening statement, “Let’s do something meaningful [now] because it is not a tolerable situation!”