This bill defines a "protected entity" as an entity with a "system or network" that could be "degraded, disrupted, or destroyed" OR with "private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information" that it is protecting. In other words, a "protected entity" is pretty much any corporation in the USA.
Is it just me or does a normal person also fit this description of a "protected entitiy" and as such every person has the right to gather any information it could possibly consider as a "threat"? And by extention one could argue that information that was not obtained yet COULD entail valuable information regarding the cybersecurity of yourself as "protected entity" and thus ANY information can be gathered by ANYONE and shared.
Or am i missing something?
When I was reading it that's also exactly what I thought. Any person with internet access becomes one. The following may not be correct, it's just a "brain spin": When any person falls under this act you turn the entire internet into a free zone of information sharing with little to no liability and "back door channel" where liability drops off completely.
Looking up on wikipedia what a "Personally Identifiable Information (PII)" is results in -> "as used in information security, is information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual." I don't know all the hidden technical information but your name in a .txt can be used with a register to identify you. If you have any account they could link it to a single piece of information and from there get to you.
I'm going a bit far especially speculating like this. My point would be that generally when a law gets made it actually gets a ton of constraints on it. The reason is simply to allow the law to only serve it's purpose, that which it has been made for, without disrupting other things or causing breaches, loop holes, leak and other flaws that can get abused. That's what I think anyway and even though I've seen very little, that's how it seems to work here.
When you then look at a law like this it's the exact opposite. As little constraints as possible, tons of ambiguity. Since we create things with a goal in mind to accomplish with it, one could say the purpose here would then be to create those flaws and loopholes that can be abused. That's what it looks like to me from my uninformed stance.
On April 20 2012 21:10 JooliaGillard wrote: It is a power grab, cyber war is the new "war on terror"
edit: Looking over the list of sponsors does anyone know why cpu maker Intel is openly behind this?
Any large R&D entity would have a strong interest in this bill.
I think one thing everyone assumes is that this bill increases government powers and reach. I strongly see it the other way: government and corporate entities are able to store, share, and distribute your PII right now in ad hoc fashion largely because the current legal structure is too outdated to grasp issues such as cloud storage, servers/data routing in other countries, and even the continuing expansion of PII as a concept. In other words, this law is probably the first attempt to define and actually control these activities.
Cybersecurity Bill Passed in U.S. House on 248-168 Vote The U.S. House of Representatives approved a Republican-backed cybersecurity bill, a day after President Barack Obama’s administration called the measure flawed and threatened a veto.
The bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, passed the House today by a vote of 248 to 168. The measure, introduced by Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, would encourage the government and companies to share data on cyber threats and give businesses legal immunity for such exchanges.
The Obama administration said in a statement yesterday it “strongly opposes” the House bill in its current form, adding that the measure falls short in protecting the nation’s critical systems from cyber attacks and would erode consumer-privacy safeguards. Civil liberties groups have protested the legislation, saying it would let too much personal data flow to the government without limits on use.
The White House supports a bill from Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, that would put the Department of Homeland Security in charge of regulating cybersecurity of the nation’s vital systems such as power grids and water-treatment plants. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has pledged to bring the Lieberman bill to the Senate floor without giving a date.
Lawmakers are debating cybersecurity legislation following computer assaults on companies last year including New York- based Citigroup Inc. (C) (C), the third-largest U.S. bank by assets, and Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) (LMT), the world’s largest defense company. The attacks intensified concerns over theft of U.S. intellectual property by cyber spies and potential disruption of essential networks by hackers.
The Rogers bill is H.R. 3523. The Lieberman bill is S. 2105
Obama said he would veto it if it came to his desk but who knows what will happen. Goes to the Senate next. Dunno what to think of it now. CISPA doesn't seem to have the intense backlash against it that SOPA got. Then again it wouldn't matter. They would just put the same bullshit under a new name until people just give up trying to fight against endless horrible bills so it will eventually pass anyways -_-
Reason there hasn't been a huge backslash from the sites, like in case of SOPA, is that this bill does not harm companies in any way. This is all about individual rights so every single company and/or website will remain unharmed... as long as they just share user information when needed.
If you haven't already, you should really start to be careful what you say and do online now..It's sad it has come to that. Facebook-rules apply now to whole internet: "if you put something to internet, millions of people will see it tomorrow". That's the best assumption to live by.
*edit* After thinking that for a bit, I've done that for years. So I guess this bill doesn't change my life at all.
Does this mean that I might start to not be able to download whatever I want from the internet, regardless of any copyright protection? If so, than this sucks.
I'm for this bill. This should greatly increase America's and the American Government's ability to secure its intellectual property. As someone who has some experience in this field, this seems like a great idea.
Template copied from reddit that you can send your Senators- "
Dear Senator,
I am writing to you to ask that you vote NO on the upcoming bill, CISPA, which just passed the vote in the House of Representatives by a 248 to 168 vote. I do not like anything that I see in the bill in its current form, but some of my biggest concerns are:
- Huge expansion of government power, essentially creating a legal channel for spying on its own population - Lack of privacy controls (any and all information can and will be disclosed to the "authorities" should the bill pass in its current form) - No safeguards that the system this bill would create won't be used and abused by those with the authority to use the powers it grants
Please consider these 3 points carefully before you decide which way to vote. Bills such as this one, and SOPA before it, make me feel extremely uncomfortable about my own government. Just thinking that somebody might be reading all of my personal communications with my friends or relatives sends shivers up my spine.
I hate to put it this way, but unless you can show me that you understand my point of view (and I'm sure countless other similar ones), I will not be able to justify voting for YOU to represent ME in the U.S. Senate.
Sincerely,
MYREALNAME
Feel free to use this as a template when contacting YOUR senators (and I hope you do contact them)
More info: "The vote followed the debate on amendments, several of which were passed. Among them was an absolutely terrible change (PDF) to the definition of what the government can do with shared information, put forth by Rep. Quayle. Astonishingly, it was described as limiting the government's power, even though it in fact expands it by adding more items to the list of acceptable purposes for which shared information can be used."
On April 20 2012 19:06 EngrishTeacher wrote: I'm in China, and ALL internet traffic is monitored, 24/7 without fail.
And I have to say, it's not so bad. What does the average citizen have to hide from the government anyway? Nothing really
I wouldn't say that "it's not so bad", but you're right when you say that people just don't care about monitoring and censorship in China. Keep in mind that most of the people can't be dubbed as citizens. The few real citizens trying to find proper news coverage and accurate statistics, pushing for civil rights, etc, are very aware of censorship and do whatever they can to go around it.
On April 20 2012 19:06 EngrishTeacher wrote: I'm in China, and ALL internet traffic is monitored, 24/7 without fail.
And I have to say, it's not so bad. What does the average citizen have to hide from the government anyway? Nothing really
I wouldn't say that "it's not so bad", but you're right when you say that people just don't care about monitoring and censorship in China. Keep in mind that most of the people can't be dubbed as citizens. The few real citizens trying to find proper news coverage and accurate statistics, pushing for civil rights, etc, are very aware of censorship and do whatever they can to go around it.
The Chinese govt. doesn't give a rat's ass about frivolous downloading and sharing of copyrighted material, though. They're just making sure the population is "in check" which is to be expected from China. In America, this is the groundwork for a copyright infringement witch-hunt where everybody's personal computer isn't so personal. Since America is not China, this invasion of privacy is unacceptable.
EDIT: I couldn't imagine running a "virus & spyware" scan, where thousands of "threats" are discovered on my PC and reported to the authorities, with my own "consent".
Republicans in favor of CISPA: 206 Republicans against CISPA: 42
Democrats in favor of CISPA: 42 Democrats against CISPA: 140
Think what you want about wars and drug prohibition, but this isn't a thread about that. This thread is discussing the fact that Republicans are overwhelmingly supporting invasion of privacy while Democrats are the opposite.
I honestly do not see how Republicans try to act like they are about small government anymore. How can a party that touts its anti-government stance vote like this? Its downright contradictory. I feel this is a perfect example of how Republicans vote in favor of business influence above their ideals.
If I'm not mistaken, the bill's intentions are to address the incredible insecurities our key infrastructures have. Power, transportation, utilities, all have gone under tremendous automation and integration with internet and technology, but there is no standards for their security measures. For all we know, the local water treatment facility could have unsecured wifi with a company policy that requires employees to use Internet Explorer 6.
The scope and attention is much different than SOPA.
On April 27 2012 13:47 aksfjh wrote: If I'm not mistaken, the bill's intentions are to address the incredible insecurities our key infrastructures have. Power, transportation, utilities, all have gone under tremendous automation and integration with internet and technology, but there is no standards for their security measures. For all we know, the local water treatment facility could have unsecured wifi with a company policy that requires employees to use Internet Explorer 6.
The scope and attention is much different than SOPA.
If that were the sole purpose of the bill they could write it to specifically limit the use of the data for those purposes. I find it worrisome how vague and broad their definitions are, like it were specifically designed to have loopholes for corporations corporations and the federal government to use it for other purposes. I guess if you are planning to go to the effort to put a bill through congress nowadays you better be able to use it as broadly as possible :/
I was talking to my law professor about this bill, and he said the reasons this could be so badly misused are;
1) The wording is intentionally vague and would most certainly be manipulated/abused once passed by both the Federal Government and Private Sector.
2) The Federal Government at this moment actually has quite a few legal hurdles using online data derived from 'data mining' before they can use it in court eg; Someone searches 'how to make bomb', they can't just go get a warrant on that information alone. This bill would change that. They could immediately call up google or whomever, and pretty much subpoena the data on anyone pretty much instantly because this bill is so strongly worded. And the part that seems to read that the private parties get to choose what to send to them is a joke. If you look at precedence, the Gov always just yanks the information no matter what.
So with the sudden change in terms of 'child safety', how would they act? Would they gather information about you just because you googled specific search terms? What about national security?
Way too vague bill and I'm pretty sure there will have to be a large calling to senators to still have an effect. Petitions don't help at all, hardly more than giving facebook likes, but perhaps they will do something in convincing the average senator.
EPT
