A quick survey of today's news . . .
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Reuters reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern to Chinese leaders over the pervasive level of Chinese cyberespionage. The article didn't mention how or if the Chinese responded. Perhaps a first step in the Obama administration openly confronting the Chinese?
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Andy Greenberg wrote for Forbes on how Mozilla (the company behind the Mozilla Firefox browser) recently came out against CISPA. According to the article, Mozilla took issue with CISPA's vague wording and possibly broad reach. Mozilla is the first tech firm to come out against CISPA; other tech firms have either supported CISPA (like Facebook) or quietly worked with House leaders to improve the bill (like Google). CISPA passed the House last week.
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Mike Masnick reported for techdirt on how the Obama administration still intends to veto CISPA despite certain amendments designed to limit the bill's scope. Specifically, White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt said that the White House still has its reservations about the bill.
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Brookings posted an article by John Villasenor about the government's role in cybersecurity. In light of the recent cybersecurity legislation debate, Villasenor believes that the government should have a much reduced role in cybersecurity.
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Peter Griffiths reported for Reuters on how the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA)–sort of the British FBI–suffered a DDOS attack that brought down the agency's public website.
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Michael Schmidt reported for the New York Times on how a FEMA study recently concluded that state and local officials are unsure whether their agencies could respond to cyberattacks. The report explained that cybersecurity “was the single core capability where states had made the least amount of overall progress” with 45% of officials saying that they did not have a formal program to respond to cyberattacks.
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Mark Clayton reported for the Christian Science Monitor on a new Chinese cyberespionage effort. According to the CSM, Chinese cyberspies infiltrated and stole data from 20 organizations in Europe, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. The stolen data apparently has long term economic and political implications, and was likely stolen to influence negotiations and national policy on a strategic level.
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The Iran Times reported on comments from the commander of the Iranian civil defense organization. According to his man, Iranian authorities determined that Stuxnet was a U.S./Israeli operation that originated in Texas.
Of course, take this with a grain of salt.
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