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YES. The NSA should be working to protect American citizens and businesses from cyber attacks, not subjecting us to them.

• diminoten 12y ago
  Why is the NSA now the US's cyber police? The NSA should be performing signal and human intelligence operations around the world to ensure the US can track global events. While the Internet is a key tool for this, it doesn't make them the "internet cops" of the US. The FBI should be doing this, not the NSA, considering the FBI is actually the "US Police".
  • phkahler 12y ago
    It's probably the equipment makers obligation to have this kind of internet-wide scan done on their devices. A central agency may not even know what's out there, and it's not really reasonable or efficient to have it be the gas station owners problem. Well it is kind of their problem, but it's really stupid to expect every station owner to solve an internet security problem themselves.
    • diminoten 12y ago
      You're absolutely right, given what the state of technology education is in the US/world today, but imagine that sentence in "meatspace": "It's really stupid to expect every station owner to solve a physical security problem themselves."
      • phkahler 12y ago
        touche
  • maxerickson 12y ago
    Protecting US government communications has always been part of the mandate of the NSA. Human intelligence operations have never been part of their mandate.
    • mod 12y ago
      According to the encyclopedia: It was established in 1952 by a presidential directive from Harry S. Truman in which he specified its mission as to provide an effective, unified organization and control of the communications intelligence activities of the United States conducted against foreign governments, to provide for integrated operational policies and procedures pertaining thereto.
      • mikeash 12y ago
        The role of Information Assurance (i.e. keeping our stuff secure from them, not just breaking into their stuff) was added in 1990: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsd/nsd42.pdf http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsd/nsd42.pdf
  • Spooky23 12y ago
    The government has made representations that we're facing a "cyber warfare" threat, and NSA is a paramilitary organization with a big role to play in conducting such a conflict. The FBI is an investigative agency. They aren't beat cops. They aren't soldiers. They do have a counter-intelligence role. From a threat POV, consider how dependent on gasoline and diesel the US economy is, and what the impact of disruption would be. If an attacker could disrupt fuel supplies in key areas or highway corridors, they would cause all sorts of chaos and economic damage. As Americans, we've been very lucky to have two oceans protect us from the shift in warfare from the battlefield to total war, with the exception of the US Civil War. Our global connectivity changed the threat landscape. That's not a police matter.
  • jrochkind1 12y ago
    "NSA/CSS has two interconnected missions: Signals Intelligence (known as SIGINT) and Information Assurance. Through SIGINT, we gather information that America's adversaries wish to keep secret. Through Information Assurance, we protect America's vital national security information and systems from theft or damage by others." https://www.nsa.gov/about/faqs/about_nsa.shtml https://www.nsa.gov/about/faqs/about_nsa.shtml
    • diminoten 12y ago
      Oh, well I guess it is right there in the charter, isn't it? I was wrong, it should be the NSA who does this stuff.
      • growupkids 12y ago
        Its DHS that is responsible for protecting critical infrastructure, not the NSA: http://www.dhs.gov/homeland-security-presidential-directive-7 http://www.dhs.gov/homeland-security-presidential-directive-... In the NSAs charter, the term "National security information" refers to classified information and "sensitive but unclassified" information, and the scope includes those systems. The scope does not include protecting all systems that might have national security implications, the NSA has no regulatory authority or requirement to do this.
  • oh_sigh 12y ago
    internet security agents aren't cyber police. Presumably no law is broken if a company has a security flaw in their processes.
  • mkramlich 12y ago
    the FBI's mission is to enforce federal law what he proposed is more like defense. "cyber" defense. so perhaps better as a different agency or under DOD
  • furyg3 12y ago
    If your corporate operations are vital to national security, congratulations! You've made it big! Also, you should take security seriously. This should be an agreement between you and the rest of society (read: laws or standards). Government agencies responsible for the security of the nation should probably be looking into these types of things, and if they come across your RS232->Ethernet-dongle-that-explodes-Tampa they should a) notify you, b) offer assistance if required (for a price) and c) fine and/or arrest you if you are a serial offender. Serial offender? I can't believe I just typed that...