If they are after bad guys great - I have no problem with that. Where there is a problem is at airports when gov’t and TSA think they have a right to search any ones computers without reason. So in that case cheers to the DECAF but better yet, use Linux and the many high level encryption programs out there to secure your data. Likewise Ironkey USB is another option.
Protect yourself from COFEE with some DECAF
Two developers have created “Detect and Eliminate Computer Assisted Forensics” (DECAF). The tool tries to stop Microsoft’s Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE), which helps law enforcement officials grab data from password protected or encrypted sources.
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In response to Microsoft’s Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE), which helps law enforcement officials grab data from password protected or encrypted sources, two developers have created “Detect and Eliminate Computer Assisted Forensics” (DECAF), a counter intelligence tool designed to thwart the Microsoft forensic toolkit. DECAF monitors the computer its running on for any signs that COFEE is operating on the machine and does everything it can to stop it. Read more at arstechnica.com |
LMAO! While it might be more secure - I Highly doubt the performance and capabilities of the DISA cloud would even come withing being 25% better than Google, SalesForce, or others. There is no way they have the API capability, the scalability, nor the high caliber team of people that exist in Silicon Valley (whether that be Goog, FB, Ning, or others). This is definitely marketing hype and lobbying to keep out the Google and others - mostly by the beltway bandit companies that have been paid to build these gov’t clouds. Pentagon: Our cloud is better than Google’s |
(10-05) 12:38 PDT –
The U.S. Defense Department is offering cloud computing services that military officials claim are safer and more reliable than commercial providers such as Google. |
At a press conference Monday, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) announced that it is allowing military users to run applications in production mode on its cloud computing platform, which is called RACE for Rapid Access Computing Environment. |
Since its launch a year ago, RACE has been available for test and development of new applications, but not for operations. |
Military officials say RACE is now ready to deliver cutting-edge applications to military personnel. |
Henry Sienkiewicz, technical program director of DISA’s computing services and RACE team, says RACE is more secure and stable than commercial cloud services. Google, for example, has suffered from frequent service outages including high-profile Gmail and Google News outages in September. Read more at www.sfgate.com |
This is just not a good thing. China Hired for Homeland Defense |
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about – what with the trillions in taxpayer bailouts of the failed banks, quasi-government mortgage lenders and automakers – listen to this tale of madness from Washington. |
A company run by the son of Chinese Pesident Hu Jintao, who does business with Iran, Cuba and Venzuela, was hired a year ago for $1.9 million to X-ray cargo being loaded on to cruise ships in Los Angeles. |
Maybe that’s what officials thought when the awarded the contract to low bidder Nuctech Inc. (Yes, that’s actually the name of the company.) |
That is the question being raised by U.S. and British competitors. They suggest Nuctech wanted the deal primarily to get its high-tech scanning machines into a major U.S. port. Or, maybe the company so closely tied to the Chinese government wanted to get hooked up to the Department of Homeland Security’s databases. Read more at www.fourwinds10.com |
Looks like Big Brother is emerging. Pa. city blankets streets with security cameras |
Surveillance system will be monitored by ordinary citizens, raising concerns |
LANCASTER, Pa. - Horses drawing buggies regularly clop down the roads approaching Lancaster, a peaceful city in the heart of Amish country that had only three murders last year and relatively low crime. |
But if the community sounds reminiscent of the past, it also has some distinctly modern technology: 165 surveillance cameras that will keep watch over thousands of residents around the clock. |
When it is complete, the surveillance system will be bigger than those in large cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston. And the fact that it will be monitored by ordinary citizens has raised privacy concerns. |
We need to move cyber-security from the 1.0 to the 3.0 quickly. We appointed a deputy undersecretary for cyber. The direction I gave him was: Hire the best and brightest to bolster the cyber-security center ‘Americans will always live with terror threats’ |
US Homeland Security chief, Janet Napolitano, has called for a constant state of preparedness in the face of growing third millennium issues before America.
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America’s top security chief also warned of rising virtual reality crimes and demanded that the current security level for cyberspace be lifted up to three times the existing status quo.
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“We need to move cyber-security from the 1.0 to the 3.0 quickly. We appointed a deputy undersecretary for cyber. The direction I gave him was: Hire the best and brightest to bolster the cyber-security center; we needed more robust interaction with the private sector because 85 percent of the critical infrastructure is controlled by the private sector. We need to be doing more research - or contract for more research - to protect existing networks with the dot-org, dot-gov, dot-com side of the cyber world.”
Read more at www.presstv.ir |
The feds need to admit that this is a devastating problem for them and they do not have the internal skills, nor do the beltway bandits and most other contractors. They need to go out and get the true professional white hats and solid cyber security firms to help deal with this head-on. To compete with the people who have these skills the US Government needs to hire the best of the best (much like they have top gun schools). We have lots of military hardware and military might, but we severly lack the skills the enemy of the future - that of the cyber realm. | Federal Web sites knocked out by cyber attack |
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WASHINGTON (AP) - A widespread and unusually resilient computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime, The Associated Press has learned. |
Federal government officials refused to publicly discuss any details of the cyber attack, and would only generally acknowledge that it occurred. It was not clear whether other government sites also were attacked. Read more at www.breitbart.com |
Since this area has the potential to be as big as the military weapons industry, everyone wants control and everyone wants a piece of the action. We are so busy fighting and tripping over ourselves that it is no wonder that the enemy can get through the gates. Also one must consider the enemy will operate at 24×7x365, but will all our command centers be able to operate at that rate?
The other problem that any US agency has is that they have to operate within the scope and parameters of the law, where the enemy has no boundaries and has no rules that they must follow. Thus the playing field is not in our favor. The Turf War Over Cyberwar |
The computer wizards at the national Security Agency’s tightly guarded headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., think they know better than anyone just how vulnerable America is to a massive cyberattack. It’s their job to monitor rogue activity on networks around the world. In recent years, hackers in Russia and China—possibly operating with government backing—have rummaged through U.S. and other Western data banks for sensitive information. Russia, in particular,has demonstrated a willingnessto wage cyberwarfare. It has launched hack attacks against uppity former Soviet satellites, including a blitz on Georgia last summer that knocked out its electronic banking system for 10 days, according to a NATO report obtained by NEWSWEEK. |
In truth, the U.S. government isn’t that worried about all-out cyberwarfare from China or Russia, because it would not be in their economic interests. What does scare the nation’s top electronic spies is the prospect of a nongovernment actor—Al Qaeda, for example—developing the required expertise. And without the swift help of NSA’s top geeks,the formersenior official said, “We’re going to have a catastrophe.” Read more at www.newsweek.com |
This will become even more intense as nations try to figure a way to defend their technical infrastructrures. Computer technology has ALWAYS been a double-edge sword, so none of this is that surprising. U.S. plans attack, defense in cyberspace warfare |
Race has begun to develop cyberweapons, systems to protect against them |
When American forces in Iraq wanted to lure members of Al Qaeda into a trap, they hacked into one of the group’s computers and altered information that drove them into American gun sights. |
When President George W. Bush ordered new ways to slow Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb last year, he approved a plan for an experimental covert program — its results still unclear — to bore into their computers and undermine the project. |
A principal architect of that order said the issue had been passed on to the next president, in part because of the complexities of cyberwar operations that, by necessity, would most likely be conducted on both domestic and foreign Internet sites. After the controversy surrounding domestic spying, Mr. Bush’s aides concluded, the Bush White House did not have the credibility or the political capital to deal with the subject. Read more at www.msnbc.msn.com |
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Security: Protect yourself from COFEE with some DECAF
