April Foolish

So, some genius thinks the feds need to establish cybersecurity standards and enforce them on private businesses. Two important thoughts should occur to the informed observer. One, the feds and for that matter, governments in general, suck at cybersecurity. Plus, by mandating one set of standards for everybody, one vulnerability in your standard affects everyone. Whee! A horrible idea from a technical perspective, not to mention government is not agile enough to keep up with changing technology. Technology moves faster than the government can.

Two, the proposal only applies to "essential" networks that control power and water systems. Given that we all live in a world where pawn shops are defined as "financial institutions", how long is it before every single network is defined as "essential" and the government can shut you down for not being secure?

The third thought should be that Congress has no authority to enact such legislation and Senators Rockefeller (D-umbass) and Snowe (R-etard) need to be horsewhipped from DC back to their homes of record. I wouldn't hold my breath, though.