I Don't Update This Enough...

...but, I did find an interesting article in the New York Times online edition today:

Pentagon Plans New Arm to Wage Wars in Cyberspace

By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER
Published: May 28, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/us/politics/29cyber.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.

The military command would complement a civilian effort to be announced by President Obama on Friday that would overhaul the way the United States safeguards its computer networks.

Mr. Obama, officials said, will announce the creation of a White House office — reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council — that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.

White House officials say Mr. Obama has not yet been formally presented with the Pentagon plan. They said he would not discuss it Friday when he announced the creation of a White House office responsible for coordinating private-sector and government defenses against the thousands of cyberattacks mounted against the United States — largely by hackers but sometimes by foreign governments — every day.

(Click link, above, for full article.)

I find this interesting, espcially coupled with this:

U.S. Mission for Sci-Fi Writers: Imagine That
Novelists Plot the Future Of Homeland Security
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052104379.html

By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 22, 2009

The line between what's real and what's not is thin and shifting, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has decided to explore both sides. Boldly going where few government bureaucracies have gone before, the agency is enlisting the expertise of science fiction writers.

Crazy? This week down at the Reagan Building, the 2009 Homeland Security Science & Technology Stakeholders Conference has been going on. Instead of just another wonkish series of meetings and a trade show, with contractors hustling business around every corner, this felt at times more like a convention of futuristic yarn-spinners.

Onstage in the darkened amphitheater, a Washington police commander said he'd like to have Mr. Spock's instant access to information: At a disaster scene, he'd like to say, "Computer, what's the dosage on this medication?"

A federal research director fantasized about a cellphone that could simultaneously text and detect biochemical attacks. Multiple cellphones in a crowd would confirm and track the spread. The master of ceremonies for the week was Greg Bear, the sci-fi novelist whose book "Quantico" featured FBI agents battling a designer plague targeting specific ethnic groups.

"What if we had a black box that IDs DNA on the scene?" Bear asked a panel of firefighters and police officers. "Put a swab in the box. How long would it take us to do that? Would that be of interest to anybody here?"

"Absolutely!" said a police official from Fairfax County.

The dozen or so novelists sprinkled throughout the breakout sessions had camouflaged themselves in GS-conformist coats and ties, but they would have fit right in anyway. Science fiction writers tend to know a lot about science. And the ranks of federal and commercial R&D departments are stuffed with sci-fi fanatics.

(Click link, above, for full article.)

These two stories sparked my interest. When I first saw the Washington Post article, I thought, "How interesting; taking a page from Fahrenheit 451." But, it seems that, between asking creative minds to think stuff up and monitoring those who aren't with the program on the Internet - perhaps the last bastion of anonymity - that we are all in for more interference and surveillance from Big Brother and Big Business.