FBI Opens New Cyber Security Office

Hi All,

I live Portland OR and the news just announced that FBI will ramp up staffing of its Portland Office bringing in 20 New Agents to work as cyber security specialist. They will tracking hacking/cracking, internet fraud, child porn and other computer related crimes. I think this is both good and bad. I think Internet fraud and child pornorgraphy are wrong and must be stopped. I think that cracking is bad when it does damage. However, I think if I find a security hole on a OS/app that I use I should be allowed to tell the vender and also posts warnings to others -note I do not condone using the holes to cause my competitors or suffering or to gain finiancial benenfit. I also wonder how the cyber security department ties in with the comments made by the White House security advisor who told attendees of Black Hat 2002 that finding holes is good as long as they do not exploit them. I am quoting 2 separate sources in this commentary. The first is K2 news in Portland the second is InformationWeekly (Aug 5th 2002 http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020802S0022). It seems the 2 departments might step on each others toes. Left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Cheers,
-D

Preach it brother preach it!

i agree with you there, hopefully the new agents will be targeting black hat hackers/crackers, people who cause damages to computer etc......

not grey hat hackers who find the vulnerabilities then to tell the vender in a report etc..

Adding 50 new FBI agents? Wow...pretty cool. Wonder what kind of background requirements are needed to even be considered?

With the government's new "Homeland Security" area, will the FBI still be under the control of the Treasury Department (I think that's the one) or will the FBI go under the Homeland Security umbrella? One report I read over the last week or so stated that 24 divisions/departments and thousands of employees (like 30,000 employees) would be in the Homeland Security department. A comment I read was like "How are they going to protect us from computer threats when their own equipment is so outdated?"

Who watches the watchers? I am less concerned with external threats than internal abuse of power, frankly because abuse is protected better, and is less obviously noxious and blatant. Were there a fixed ratio of 'oversight' officials, with no OTHER purpose than elimination of power abuse, said officials answerable in public forum for activities under their oversight, I would be somewhat relieved.

Fraud, Child porn, and cracking need to be stopped. Hacking isn't bad, if you don't use it to exploit someone or blackmail them.

I am with you guys; I see no reason to focus on the grey hats. I think that they help much more than hinder the progress of the information technology era. Get those crazy child pornographers outta there is what I say. Also, believe it to be wrong to exploit vulnerabilities. It's great that there are actually people that find these holes with the sole purpose of plugging them. We need more of those types.

Amen

i agree.. i hope child porn is stopped it is wrong... And cracker and black hatts are too... But hey sometimes people just cant help their selvs...

who-ever said alittle evil in hacking wasnt a bad thing...