Technology editor Jeff Fox is tweeting live from the White House East Room, where President Obama is expected to announce the creation of a high-level “cyber czar” position. The speech is scheduled for 10:55 this morning.
(You don’t need a Twitter account to follow his updates.)
ConsumerReports will be retweeting some of Jeff’s posts, as well as continuing our regular Twitter feed.
He’ll be setting the stage for a new era in America’s cyber-defense, which has been woefully inadequate for many years. According to my White House contact, simultaneous with the speech, the White House will release electronically the report and plan that resulted from the Obama administration’s 60-day audit of US cybersecurity.
That report should provide the strategy, if not all the details, about how the cyber-czar, and the federal government itself, intend to meet the challenge.
For example, it should provide more information about how the government plans to partner with private industry in securing the nation’s infrastructure, an alliance essential to any effort to thwart hostile foreign governments, terrorists, and cybercriminals. The report may, or may not, also address the consumer privacy concerns raised by such a public-private alliance.
Those concerns are sure to be a hot topic most of next week, at this year’s biggest privacy and security conference, CFP2009, which will be covered on this blog by my colleague, Senior Editor Donna Tapellini. Are you concerned about online privacy? Let us know and be sure to follow her coverage here next week.
Another important question that the report might answer, but I suspect won’t: How and when will the federal government restore the $14 million in funds for cybersecurity research that were cut at the last minute from the economic stimulus Congress passed this winter? Surely those funds will be desperately needed in our battle against cyberterrorists.
What do you think? With American consumers losing billions each year to cybercrime, isn’t it worth $14 million to help defeat the criminals?
As for the cyber-czar soon to be crowned, I don’t think the position’s title or reporting responsibility is quite as critical as some in the press have made them out to be. If the new appointee has the ear of the President, and if Obama is as committed to cybersecurity as he appears to be, I think the new cyber boss can be effective regardless of title or hierarchical position.
You may beg to differ. Let me know. Do you think a determined cyber-czar with close ties to the President can be effective, even in the face of the inevitable turf wars that will surely continue between the National Security Agency, Defense Department, Homeland Security, and other federal agencies?
Follow the action and commentary as it happens: I will be covering the President’s speech live from the White House starting at 10:55 AM (EDT), at my Twitter address (@JeffreyFox) then providing further blog coverage right here after the speech is over.
See you in the White House East Room! —Jeff Fox
He’ll be setting the stage for a new era in America’s cyber-defense, which has been woefully inadequate for many years. According to my White House contact, simultaneous with the speech, the White House will release electronically the report and plan that resulted from the Obama administration’s 60-day audit of US cybersecurity.
That report should provide the strategy, if not all the details, about how the cyber-czar, and the federal government itself, intend to meet the challenge.
For example, it should provide more information about how the government plans to partner with private industry in securing the nation’s infrastructure, an alliance essential to any effort to thwart hostile foreign governments, terrorists, and cybercriminals. The report may, or may not, also address the consumer privacy concerns raised by such a public-private alliance.
Those concerns are sure to be a hot topic most of next week, at this year’s biggest privacy and security conference, CFP2009, which will be covered on this blog by my colleague, Senior Editor Donna Tapellini. Are you concerned about online privacy? Let us know and be sure to follow her coverage here next week.
Another important question that the report might answer, but I suspect won’t: How and when will the federal government restore the $14 million in funds for cybersecurity research that were cut at the last minute from the economic stimulus Congress passed this winter? Surely those funds will be desperately needed in our battle against cyberterrorists.
What do you think? With American consumers losing billions each year to cybercrime, isn’t it worth $14 million to help defeat the criminals?
As for the cyber-czar soon to be crowned, I don’t think the position’s title or reporting responsibility is quite as critical as some in the press have made them out to be. If the new appointee has the ear of the President, and if Obama is as committed to cybersecurity as he appears to be, I think the new cyber boss can be effective regardless of title or hierarchical position.
You may beg to differ. Let me know. Do you think a determined cyber-czar with close ties to the President can be effective, even in the face of the inevitable turf wars that will surely continue between the National Security Agency, Defense Department, Homeland Security, and other federal agencies?
Follow the action and commentary as it happens: I will be covering the President’s speech live from the White House starting at 10:55 AM (EDT), at my Twitter address (@JeffreyFox) then providing further blog coverage right here after the speech is over.
See you in the White House East Room! —Jeff Fox
Surely I can’t be the only one here that remembers the “flying fickle finger of fate” awards from Rowan and Martin’s Laugh in. The award given to elected officials and other deserving individuals for their actions, talent, or lack of talent. Much like Karma has done to My Name Is Earl, even when it’s not deserved.
Today’s announcement that Time-Warner is spinning off AOL makes America Online as the perfect recipient of the F.F.F.O.F. award for ‘09. Technology in general is fickle. Who hasn’t bought a new computer to have another one introduced a few weeks later that makes yours look like an Abacus with an LCD screen? Yes, I remember when there was only a couple of ways to access the Internet. America Online or CompuServe, and I remember the first peer to peer file sharing was done by dialing into a friend’s computer directly.
AOL was big. It made a lot of money. So much so it bought Time-Warner and created the biggest media company ever. But fate and Karma sometimes do not play well, and the marriage was not perfect after the honeymoon. Today, Time-Warner says no more. Go and make your own way AOL. See, with broadband connections we no longer need an interface like AOL offered. The software was a huge resource drain on your PC anyway. It took over your networking, and generally caused frustrations after each updated version was released. Trust me I know.
So with the speed and fickleness that technology evolves, is investing in new technology a good thing to do? Is the government going to get the next award? You can bet your sweet bippy on that, but they have at least tried. I wasn’t a big fan of delaying the conversion, but the number of households not ready has been reduced by half to a little over three million households in three months. The rest will get ready on June 13th.
We sometimes forget how much we depend on something until it’s gone. Don’t let those coupons expire. Get a box “just in case”. Buy a new TV or whatever your budget allows. Don’t be the next recipient of the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate!
How does Dell’s new ultra-thin Adamo laptop stack up against Apple’s MacBook Air? (Results were mixed.) Wondering if you can find a full-featured laptop for about the price of a netbook? (You can.)
Learn more about these and other shopping questions in our latest batch of laptop Ratings (available to subscribers). We’ve added 14 new models, and we’ve got three recommendations for 13-inch laptops, three for 17-inch desktop replacements, and eight for 14- to 16-inch models.
More manufacturers are offering laptops with 16-inch screens. These give you a wider screen for better displaying video. You’ll also notice a lot of laptops with multitouch technology, which lets you do things like scroll up and down Web pages or zoom in on photos by using hand gestures on the touchpad.
If you’re worried about buying a Vista laptop with the release of Windows 7 imminent (it’s due out at the end of the year), plans for dealing with upgrades of new laptops from Vista to Windows 7 are still being negotiated, according to a manufacturer we spoke to. It’s possible that there will be a free upgrade plan for recent buyers, but no plans have been finalized yet.
If you’ve already got a laptop and want to switch to Windows 7, Microsoft has made available an upgrade advisor. —Donna Tapellini
