Shay 2.1

This is the third post in this week’s series on Cyber War.

Howard Schmidt, recently appointed as the new Cyber Security Coordinator by President Obama, was quoted at a conference sponsored by computer security firm RSA as saying that

“There is no cyberwar,” Schmidt told Wired.com in a sit-down interview Wednesday at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco.

“I think that is a terrible metaphor and I think that is a terrible concept,” Schmidt said. “There are no winners in that environment.”

If anyone would know about this, it would be Schmidt, right?  And if he say’s there’s no Cyber War, but McConnell says there is, where does that leave us as the cyber denizens who may well be living in a war zone and not even know it?

Schmidt says that there are no plans for “re-engineering” the Internet under the Obama administration:

For his part, Schmidt said no re-engineering of the internet is in the plans under the Obama administration. And he re-emphasized the president’s promise — delivered in a May speech addressing cybersecurity — that the government would not monitor the internet at large.

“People have to recognize that when we close the door and go home, we are just normal netizens like anyone else,” Schmidt said. “I’ve been in the internet from the very beginning. We don’t want to see it changed to where it is no longer available and we don’t have the ability to do things anonymously as we choose to in certain realms.”

“But we also need to do our financial transactions securely and you need to be able to file your story online in a manner so that by the time you upload it, it doesn’t say ‘At noon, today San Francisco had a terrible earthquake’ when that didn’t happen,” Schmidt added.

Schmidt also sees some of McConnell’s charges about the risks America faces as a little overblown:

“As for getting into the power grid, I can’t see that that’s realistic,” Schmidt said.

What Schmidt is lacking is direction and alternatives to McConnell’s suggestions.  While the White House did release their Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative (CNCI), which is a start.  But who was among the first to jump on the CNCI bandwagon?  Booz Allen, Mike McConnell’s employer.  In fact, they have an entire page dedicated to their CNCI consulting.

In addition, the GAO is already knocking the CNCI for it’s lack of coherency and specifics.

So far we’ve got the suggestion of a cyber war, and the subsequent denial of a cyber war.  We’ve got some bluster about moving towards a Cold War model, and we’ve got a 12-step, mostly classified plan.  Where does that leave us, as cyber denizens?

Frustrated.

What this problem needs is tangible solutions – with specifics, timelines, budgets, and responsibility.  Until such time as that plan is revealed, cyber will continue to be a frustration for all involved.