Comments by the new US cyber tsar Howard Schmidt are a welcome antidote to hysterical claims about online attacks
Source: Guardian: Tim Stevens
Last week, the Obama administration’s most senior official with responsibility for the internet and cyberspace made a significant intervention in the increasingly hysterical US debate over cyberwar.
Since Google announced in January that it had been the victim of a series of cyber attacks originating in China, the prospect of imminent threat from foreign states and terrorists has been repeated time and again by senior figures in the security establishment. Now, the man who is charged with shaping US policy in this field has shown that he at least will not be a vehicle for hyperbolic rhetoric and scaremongering.
On Wednesday, Howard Schmidt, appointed by President Obama in December 2009 to coordinate the development and delivery of national cybersecurity policy, stated baldly that the US is not in the midst of a cyberwar. This directly contradicts the statements last weekend of Mike McConnell, formerly director of national intelligence and currently vice-president of Booz Allen Hamilton, a major defence contractor.
In a national op-ed, McConnell claimed that the US is fighting a cyberwar today, one it is losing. Using a range of examples to make his case, including the recent Google China affair, McConnell proposed that the internet effectively be re-engineered to serve US national security interests. He went on to suggest that success in the Cold War would serve as a template for victory in the current cyberwar.
Schmidt debunked this flawed analogical reasoning, calling it both “a terrible metaphor” and “a terrible concept”. Moreover, “there are no winners in that environment”, he said.