Uncle Sam wants YOU to spy on your neighbor…

Back in June of 2013, many reports came out about the federal government asking its employee’s to spy on one another, “Thou shall snitch on thy neighbor”.  Sounds so nefarious doesn’t it?  According to Jonathan Landay and Marisa Taylor of the McClatchy Report (2013), this is exactly what is going on in our country.  The President has given the order to all federal employees’ to report suspicious activities.  According to the article, “Federal employees and contractors are asked to pay particular attention to the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors – like financial troubles, odd working hours or unexplained travel.” Hmmm, what about the nervous tick I get when I drink too much coffee Mr. President?  Should I worry? OK, I get it, do we really want another episode of “Falcon and the Snowman?” (MGM Studios, 1985) or Edward Snowden spilling the beans on top secret US military and other issues of the day? Absolutely not! BUT, do we want to constantly look over our shoulders hoping no one is looking suspiciously at us? One of the big issues I see is if you DO NOT report someone who is doing harm; you can be held culpable and may face criminal charges.  Huhhhh?  So what happens when a fed employee does something, you know nothing about it but because of your associations with them, you get strung up too?  How about the “Look at me, Look at me” guy who wants to make a name for himself and starts a campaign to discredit people because they look or act a certain way just so they get noticed, or someone just doesn’t like you so they make stuff up?  I am all for profiling, this is a fantastic method that “TRAINED” (I’m yelling here!!) law enforcement officials can use to help thwart bad characters etc. but Joe from accounting who gets a daylong seminar in Threat Behavior has no reason to do this, nor should he be ordered to do so. 

I came across an article from Kate Tummarello (2013) of theTheHill.com, titled “Government “Rarely” follows Cyber security best practices” that pointed me to a report to the President on cyber security and what the government should do in order to secure our nation.  The report, titled “Immediate Opportunities for Strengthening the Nations Cyber security” (2013) written by the “President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology” is a very interesting read indeed, (see link below.)  In it, the authors discuss many issues that they see and outline methods that our government can undertake to strengthen our defenses both foreign and domestically.  My favorite part of the reports states the following, “The Federal Government rarely follows accepted best practices. It needs to lead by example and accelerate its efforts to make routine cyber-attacks more difficult by implementing best practices for its own systems.” (p. 1).  This is the lead into the report… Tells you something doesn’t it.  Please take a moment and read it if you can, it really is interesting.

Parting Shots: There are many things the government can do to secure our nations assets, such as educating employee’s, working with the public sector and not against them, getting out of date software and hardware up to date, as well as, multiple other things, but asking people to be tattle tales should not be one of them.

 

References:

Landay, Jonathan and Taylor, Marisa. (2013).  Experts: Obama’s plan to predict future leakers unproven, unlikely to work.  McClatchy report.  McClatchyDC.com

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/09/196211/linchpin-for-obamas-plan-to-predict.html#.Ud1k_T4a8gR

 Tummarello, Kate.  (2013) White House advisers: Government 'rarely' follows cybersecurity best practices. The Hill.  TheHill.com

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/191254-white-house-advisers-government-rarely-follows-cybersecurity-best

Lander, E., Holdren, J., Savitz, M., Press, W.  (2013). Immediate Opportunities for Strengthening the Nations Cybersecurity.  (p. 1)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/PCAST/pcast_cybersecurity_nov-2013.pdf

To BLOCK or NOT TO BLOCK!! and how do I do it?

My kids love the Internet, or to be more precise, they love the fun and games that they can access on the Internet.  Some of these games can provide hours of fun and learning activities for them and who knows, they may actually learn something.  Now for the BUT sandwich, the Internet as we all know can also be a dark and seedy place as well, accidentally misspelling a URL can take them to places they should not be, not to mention, the chance of getting virus’s etc.  So what can we as parents do to minimize the exposure to these types of unfortunate web sites?

I have a suggestion… don’t let them on the Internet until they are 18, that way as a parent, your conscience is clear.  “Tongue planted firmly in cheek.”

 Kidding aside, we can do some things to mitigate this but you have to actually do it, the problem is how and where do you start? The first and most obvious is to talk to your kids, explain what might happen, how it can happen and DON’T hide it if it does.  Keeping an open mind and an open dialog with them can go a long way.  Secondly, check to see what parental controls your OS has to offer.  Microsoft, for example offers a “Parental Control” suite in their Windows products and it really isn’t too difficult to accomplish it.  Here is the link to the Microsoft page to set up the controls.  What I like about this is you as the administrator have the control, while your child only has a standard account.  You can restrict access to certain websites “Age appropriate” either manually or automatically.  Set time limits and even control access to games.  Again, please see the link above to get a much more detailed overview of this subject.

If you want to get a bit more draconian, you can even purchase or download free computer monitoring software that you can load onto your kids PC’s.  CNET.com is a great web site to get reviews and find a software platform that can fit your needs.  Programs to block websites or log keystrokes and basically monitor everything they do. You can be the NSA.....

Again, the goal in this post is to give you a few options that you can have in your arsenal to not only protect your kids from unwanted, inappropriate web content but to protect your PC from unwanted threats.  I have seen it happen, a child gets on a website, gets nervous and instead of closing the web page out, they accidentally click on a link on the page or a picture and the PC gets infected.  Explain to them the importance of knowing who is sending them something and that their e-mails can have infected attachments.  Instant messaging is another foul little beast that gets them.  What computer these days doesn’t have some sort of IM program? These programs are a hackers dream. Never, ever click on a link that is sent by anyone you do not know.  Phishing isn't a relaxing day at the lake…..

Parting Shots: So even though programs are out there, the best option, you have as a parent is knowledge.  The more you can pound into your kids thick, I know absolutely everything, skulls full of mush, the better you will be as well as them.

Facebook... Really?

Many years back I wanted to play Farmville but didn't want to create an account on Facebook but, I had no choice. So, I jumped into the Facebook arena and added my name to the long list of FB users… Remember, all I wanted to do was play Farmville, why? I don’t really know.  I digress… My thoughts about FB were this, “Only people with self-esteem issues or Narcissists use FB.” And do I really want to hear a friend or family member drone on and tell me all about their delicious baked Ziti recipes.  But I started to look and post and truth be told it was fun at times, to be able to see the changes in people who I hadn't seen for many years was a cathartic thing to some degree.  

Well, being a conspiracy theorist (No, he was born in America, I’ll give you that one J), I rarely put out too much data about myself or family and truly marveled at the people who would.  Not to mention all the risky pictures that they would post of themselves in, um… odd predicaments.  I would always tell my nephew.  “Dude, stop with the pics of you binge drinking with friends… it will come back to haunt you, that information is no longer yours and you can never get it back.” He could never really understand what I meant.  I’m just an old guy who is outta touch.  

As time went on I started to get a bit bored of FB and stopped all together.  I have wanted several times to delete my account but wanted to be able to keep in touch with old friends and like the fact that I could reach them in this fashion, but I really do hate my information still being out in the ether…  Someone with skills could get ahold of that data that FB says is private and do nefarious things with it.  Sure enough, just yesterday, I read the following article written by Jose Pagilery from CNNMoney, titled 2 Million Facebook Gmail and Twitter passwords stolen in massive hack. Here is the story by the way.  I will let you read the story and make your own conclusions but needless to say, sometimes, your data isn't always safe and yes nephew, I am right.  I truly hope that I or one of my FB friends were NOT part of that hack… 

Parting shots: Like I told my nephew, once you put something on the internet, it is out there for everyone to see, copy and use against you, especially if you are vying for a job, this can kill your chances.  It shouldn't but it can.  Limit your exposure to risk and keep your data to yourself.  Like Gandalf said to Frodo.. "Keep it secret, keep it safe."