Daily Blog: Scouting the Internet and World at large

A great debate rages in the realm of computer security as to the proper way to protect vital infrastructure. The old adage of creating a walled garden was sufficient in the days before wireless networks and roaming laptops, but it now necessary to adopt a layer approach to security. on the flip side some security experts now argue that it's impossible to construct a wall around infrastructure and thus state "there is no perimeter".

while I agree that enforcing security only at the perimeter is no longer valid I'm not convinced that we should entirely abandon the concept. Chad Perrin over at TechRepublic agrees in his post There is no perimeter, kinda.

..It's a very popular thing to say in certain circles. It makes you sound cutting-edge and knowledgeable. That's the great thing about these postmodern-sounding declarations that everybody accepts as a simple fact of reality even though they don't even exist — they always make you sound cutting-edge and knowledgeable.

Unfortunately, it's wrong. There is still a perimeter. For the foreseeable future, there will always be a perimeter. The argument that fifty percent of security breaches "don't go through the firewall" is a bit of handwaving and misdirection, really. What about the other fifty percent? How accurate are these statistics, anyway?

Though the basis of the test was malware infection it's easy to extrapolate that Windows Vista is at least as vulnerable as prior operating systems to exploit. From the start security industry pundits have accused Vista of touting security yet failing to live up to expectation. Given that most of the features of Vista are not "must haves", the disappointing security record means that even fewer people will demand Vista on new computers. Is it any surprise that many OEMs plan to continue to offer XP preloads for the foreseeable future?

Windows Vista More Vulnerable To Malware Than Windows 2000

Microsoft's Vista operating system is more susceptible to malware than Windows 2000, and though it's 37% more secure than Windows XP, it's still too vulnerable.

That's the contention of security vendor PC Tools Software, which has a financial interest in the vulnerability of Microsoft's software.

"Ironically, the new operating system has been hailed by Microsoft as the most secure version of Windows to date," said Simon Clausen, CEO of PC Tools, in a statement. "However, recent research conducted with statistics from over 1.4 million computers within the ThreatFire community has shown that Windows Vista is more susceptible to malware than the eight year old Windows 2000 operating system, and only 37% more secure than Windows XP."

It's easy to see why environmentalists are upset over a new coal fired power plant, but what they fail to see is that in exchange Duke will shut down four older plants. The new plant will not only be more efficient but will also have to comply with new EPA rules which mandate scrubbers and other methods of reducing carbon output. While protesters might mean well the fact is that this new plant, along with several others, will help to power the expanding demand of the Charlotte area which has experienced tremendous growth in recent years. If the Golden State, California, is any example failure to build newer more modern power plants will result in shortages, skyrocketing utility prices and possibly even rolling blackouts.

Duke Energy gets criticism for NC coal-fired generated

Duke Energy is building an 800-megawatt generator at Cliffside, about 50 miles west of Charlotte. The company plans to close four older generators when the project is complete in 2012.

Several environmental groups have asked a judge to halt the $2.4 billion project, arguing the state air quality permit for the project violates federal law.

Along with the Cliffside plant, the company is building a coal gasification power plant in southwest Indiana. The company also has plans to build two natural gas-fired plants in North Carolina and a nuclear plant in South Carolina.

Andrei, you've lost another submarine?

Whether the backups have gone missing deliberately or accidentally the fact that White House staff members can't lay hands on them is an embarrassment. Aside from any juicy tidbits about the Iraq war what other state secrets could be on those tapes? In the real world some IT people would be fired for such an offense.

White House Admits It Is Missing Email Backup Tapes From Start of Iraq War

The White House acknowledged in a court filing last night that it no longer has backup tapes of email from between March 1 and May 22, 2003, a period that includes the beginning of the Iraq war.

Yesterday's filing (PDF) is the latest development in the ongoing White House emails lawsuit, in which two non-profits, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive (NSA), are suing to force the administration to recover any missing emails and institute a more effective email archiving system. (For the full story on the missing emails, check out our missing White House emails index.) The filing comes on the heels of several seemingly contradictory statements by administration officials about whether the allegedly missing emails are available on backup tapes. The court had asked the administration to clear up the confusion by clearly stating which backup tapes it does and does not have for the period between March 2003 and October 2005.