[iwar] IT security funding vs. biowar funding

From: Charles Preston (cpreston@sinbad.net)
Date: 2002-01-17 11:41:55


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Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:41:55 -0900
Subject: [iwar] IT security funding vs. biowar funding
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People concerned about funding for IT security research, and action instead
of talk in this field, could make a parallel with funding and action on
bioterrorism.

---------------------------
The following excerpt is from Germs, by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and
William Broad, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 320

A half century ago, a group of eminent citizens warned James Forrestal, the
first secretary of defense, that the United States was defenseless against
germ attacks.  But its recommendations for better intelligence, more
research, drug stockpiles, and medical surveillance systems were largely
ignored.  Over the next five decades, a series of American presidents
confronted the problem, considered various remedies, and shuffled the issue
into the "too hard" box.  Such denial is understandable.  Biodefense has no
natural political constituency in Washington.  The military-industrial
complex that supports weapons systems has little interest in vaccines and
public health.

"Plans should be prepared for the establishment of adequate laboratory and
vaccine production facilities and stockpiles of essential basic medical
supplies in the event the danger from enemy attack appears imminent,"
Forrestal's committee concluded in 1949.  "Prompt action should be taken to
establish a civil defense program."

Those words could have been written yesterday.  The question is whether the
United States will be able to wait another fifty years to act on them.  If
we as a nation believe that the germ threat is a hoax, we are spending too
much money on it.  But if the danger is real, as we conclude it is, then the
investment is much too haphazard and diffuse.  We remain woefully unprepared
for a calamity that would be unlike any this country has ever experienced.
---------------------------

Optimists would say that IT security is doing ok by comparison, since
bioweapons would result in very real and visible (as opposed to abstract)
sickness and death.

An infowar study from several years ago made the point that "a good offense
is not a good defense" where you can't easily identify targets for that
offensive action.  The same problem exists with bioterrorism.  Any U.S.
progress in offensive biowar or infowar isn't a substitute for protection.
Parity in weapons with other select nation-states is only part of the
answer.  Even large opponents of the U.S. may be willing to bet that it will
take months or years for intelligence and investigation to lead back to them
from the agents they support.

cmp




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