Catching Up: pirates, taxes, and cyber security

I am just catching up to the news of the last couple of days. Pealing myself away from the twelfth load of laundry to find out what is happening in the world. I must say that there are a few things going on that are encouraging, discouraging, and perplexing.

- The captain of a ship flying under US colors was freed by Navy SEAL snipers. Bravo! President Obama had been silent on the issue, denying repeated opportunities and requests to comment. Evidently permission had been granted to act if the captain’s life was in imminent danger. Fortunately that occurred about the same time that the three pirates in the boat with the captain happen to stick their heads up all at the same time. Three pirates later… the captain is free!

Unfortunately this is a problem that is not going to go away. The pirates have been too busy collecting money from different governments and businesses all over the world that would rather give in and pay up than deal with the problem. The right answer is the one that the US has been giving for more than half a century, and that is “we do not negotiate with terrorists”. Equally unfortunately President Obama missed a golden opportunity to restate this policy. The secondary response in this situation is to go in and clean out the pirates wherever they hide. These are terrorists at sea and need to be dealt with in such a manner. The whole reason they even exist is that President Clinton ran out of Mogadishu instead of moving in forcefully and eliminating the problem. Now we are stuck with a failed Somalian state that is basically run through anarchy and AK-47s.

- Reports are coming in that people are going to be delinquent in their taxes. What is more shocking is that some of them AREN’T cabinet members! While it is sad that some small business owners were hit hard by this down turn and so dipped into their tax savings accounts to pay their bills, I have to wonder how recent events have affected the situation. Considering the number of cabinet appointees that have issues with back taxes, I have to think that this has a trickle down effect to the ordinary citizen who looks at his tax bill and thinks, “they aren’t paying theirs, why should I pay mine!” No proof. I didn’t even bother finding anecdotal evidence for this one. Just a thought.

- The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 has been brought forward. I’m scratching my head on this one. On the one hand there are some clauses in here that just look concerning. One says that the president has the ability to shut down certain networks if he deems them “critical infrastructure” and there is a cyber emergency. Hmmm… Also another clause that says, the Secretary of Commerce has access to "all relevant data concerning such networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." (section 14,b,1) Wow, I don’t like the sound of that and I’m not sure what implications it has if any, but I guess it all depends on what the president deems as “critical infrastructure”. Aside from all of that, I don’t know how I feel about the government poking its nose into cyber security. It sounds good to establish standards for that kind of thing, but how long are those standards really good for? I mean, if the company that produces my virus protection software says that they are “current with all government standards”, I’m probably going to find another software suite. I don’t want one that “meets’ some government standard, I want one made by hackers-turned-good that know all the ins and outs and can think like the bad guys. The Act also establishes government contests, scholarship programs, academic schooling in cyber security standards, and all other kinds of private enterprise that the government appears to want to take over. I’m not sure consolidation in this business is a good idea and I’m pretty certain that government ownership of that consolidation is a BAD idea.

I didn’t even mention the ever worsening situation with Iran, that is a whole different post on its own.

There is a lot going on in the world… including laundry load number 13! Excuse me…