Colonial Pipeline is a private company. Should the US Government get involved?

[Hawkeye10]

Public-private key encryption (the basis of SSL and HTTPS) was constructed by private individuals, not government. Government wanted to install a backdoor in it. The developers told them to get lost.

I can see that there is disagreement on this issue.

Which is OK.

 

[Into the Night]

Question from an idiot about computers, would a backup system have prevented this?

No.

 

[Into the Night]

The other thing that has to happen with your backups is they have to be isolated in some way. If you are simply backing up to a computer on your network then the ransomware can write to that back up and encrypt all your backups making your backups useless.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-victims-thought-their-backups-were-safe-they-were-wrong/

Or the backups themselves are simply backing up the corrupted system.

 

[Into the Night]

Securing the nation is exactly their job.

No, it isn't. They have no clue, for one thing, on how to do it. For a 2nd finish, secure ...... what, exactly? and against what, exactly?

No nationwide solution is going to work.



It is NOT government's job to secure my computers and my network. It is MY job. No one else's.

 

[Into the Night]

I can see that there is disagreement on this issue.

Which is OK.

Argument of the stone fallacy. Paradox. Which is it, dude?

 

[Hawkeye10]

No, it isn't. They have no clue, for one thing, on how to do it. For a 2nd finish, secure ...... what, exactly? and against what, exactly?

No nationwide solution is going to work.



It is NOT government's job to secure my computers and my network. It is MY job. No one else's.

We are way behind, what we have been doing is not working, we are getting slaughtered, I demand that the government do their jobs and secure America from the abuse we are currently receiving from our enemies. .

I am likely done with this thread.

 

[Into the Night]

We are way behind, what we have been doing is not working, we are getting slaughtered, I demand that the government do their jobs and secure America from the abuse we are currently receiving from our enemies. .

I am likely done with this thread.

In some areas, we are way behind in the market. In others we are way ahead. In still others we are competitive. Our security technology is the best in the world. We invented public/private key encryption systems. We invented the use of a multi-time pad. We invented a way to make use of it large scale (i.e. the HTTPS web).

What we cannot prevent is bozo idiots from building systems that are either poor or non-existent security. There's no excuse. We have the technology, but some prefer to wreck their own cars, so to speak.

Government cannot secure all networks, and it's stupid to insist that they do so. Every network is different. It provides different services, is configured differently, and carries different kinds of data...some for public consumption, some for internal status controls that are temporary, and some for secure ident purposes. Government literally has no clue what to do. Heck, they have trouble securing their OWN networks. They are usually trivially easy to break into.

Government is not the solution.

 

[Jack]

Private industry is actually the best way to handle it. They are best equipped to secure their own network.

Obviously.

 

[Lightbringer]

Colonial Pipeline is a private company. Should the US Government get involved?

The fuck it is.