Avoiding Global Collapse: The Cyborg Solution

Is the solution to our problems, a machine vision of the world? A self-organizing model, based on an underlying order of nature - that was completely disproved in 1981 - and taken from the cold and logical world of machines, where humans are reduced to mechanistic nodes? Or, has the environmental movement been hijacked by "right winged think tanks" and "cold war technocrats" who were using the balance of nature as a political trick? In other words, is this idea of the "balance of nature", "equilibrium" "web of life" "self-regulating Eco-system" an attempt by the powerful to maintain the status quo?

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U.S. Wants to Build New Safer Internet Infrastructure

Say good-bye to anonymity. The US is seriously considering building a new Internet infrastructure to prevent cyber attacks.


General Michael Hayden’s presentation begins at approximately 42:20 into the video.

Several current federal officials, including U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander, want a “.secure” network for critical services such as banking that would be walled off from the public Web. Unlike .com, .xxx and other new domains now proliferating the Internet, .secure would require visitors to use certified credentials for entry and would do away with users’ Fourth Amendment rights to privacy. Network operators in the financial sector, for example, would be authorized to scan account holders’ traffic content for signs of trouble.

Nations with fewer civil liberty protections, including China, use “deep packet inspection” to search all Internet traffic for viruses — as well as anti-government content, noted James Mulvenon, a China and cybersecurity specialist. Due to privacy laws, the United States cannot monitor private network traffic using this approach. Mulvenon questioned whether such restrictions give other nation states the upper hand in cyber defense. “We still believe that anonymity is possible,” he said of America’s attitude toward freedom of expression on the Internet.

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Orwellian Cyber Surveillance?

George Orwell warned us about doublethink, the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. He warned us of newspeak, designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.  And he warned of never ending global wars and universal surveillance.  Although he was off by a few decades, his predictions appear to be unfolding as constitutionally protected forms of political opposition including speech, the written word, and the right to assemble could fall under the broad definition of terrorism.

Here's one example of  the universal surveillance Orwell spoke of. The Obama Administration is currently pushing a legislative proposal that will require "Internet-based communications providers to support wiretap capabilities in their products." They want to "add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval"  In other words, the Obama Administration wants to wiretap the Internet.

Three of the proposed requirements:

• Communications services that encrypt messages must have a way to unscramble them.
• Foreign providers that do business inside the United States must establish a domestic office capable of performing intercepts.
• Developers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication must redesign their services to allow interception.

However, the proposed Internet wiretapping law may be fundamentally incompatible with security.

One more Orwellian example:  the Office of the Director of National Intelligence appears to be on the verge of prevailing in an attempt to put some information it receives from other intelligence agencies beyond the reach of Freedom of Information Act requests.

Links:

Electronic Police State -- every surveillance camera recording, every email sent, every Internet site surfed, every post made, every check written, every credit card swipe, every cell phone ping… are all criminal evidence, and all are held in searchable databases. The individual can be prosecuted whenever the government wishes.

Unclassified Report on the President's Surveillance Program

President's Surveillance Program In the weeks following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the President authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct a classified program to detect and prevent further attacks in the United States. As part of the NSA's classified program, several different intelligence activities were authorized in Presidential Authorizations, and the details of these activities changed over time. The program was reauthorized by the President approximately every 45 days, with certain modifications. Collectively, the activities carried out under these Authorizations are referred to as the "President's Surveillance Program" or "PSP."

The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative

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President Obama Will Choose Cyber Czar.

Tomorrow, after President Barack Obama releases the final report following a 60-day review of U.S. cyber security policy, he will announce the creation of a "cyber czar" position, in order to protect the nation's computer networks living up to his presidential campaign pledge to
"elevate the issue of cybersecurity to a "top priority" and to appoint a national cybersecurity adviser "who will report directly to me."

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How Secure Is Cyberspace?

From CERT:

Cyberspace has become so woven into the fabric of our society that it's almost impossible to separate the "real" world from virtual reality without experiencing enormous loss qualitatively and quantitatively.

We shop, bank, pay bills, communicate, learn, research, plan, organize, collaborate, store photos, entertain ourselves, support ourselves, etc. in cyberspace. Our growing dependence on the virtual world presents risks and security challenges we've never seen before, so much so that securing cyberspace has become crucial to our everyday lives as well as our national security. Our nation is becoming more and more dependent on it for operating its critical infrastructures such as transportation, communication, finance, energy distribution etc. Currently our nation's vulnerability to attack and susceptibility to disaster is much too high.

The Committee on Improving Cybersecurity Research in the United States, responsible for publishing "Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace" which can be read online for free, presents a better understanding of why cyberspace is as vulnerable as it is, and the research on new technologies and policies and their effective implementation to make things safer.

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