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There are several but to my knowledge there is no one government internet. The military has its own networks, and so does Homeland security but many of the government networks are still accessible from outside. So much government data is accessible on the internet to someone with the willingness to dedicate the time to it (China). It really needs to be taken off the net and given its own connections but that would mean laying their own cables and maintaining them.

 LordofHats wrote:
There are several but to my knowledge there is no one government internet. The military has its own networks, and so does Homeland security but many of the government networks are still accessible from outside. So much government data is accessible on the internet to someone with the willingness to dedicate the time to it (China). It really needs to be taken off the net and given its own connections but that would mean laying their own cables and maintaining them.

I knew what you meant... just poking at ya.

Some essential network for the government are actually off grid. But even that isn't enough either... Iran's nuke site was supposedly off grid too, but stuxnet got through (presumably via thumbdrive).

But, your point do remain that the everyday network are still vulnerable, especially our utility infrastratures.

One thing I wished the '10 stimulus bill would fund activities to harden the network/utility infrastructure and bury lines. They'd be a great stimulus...

Stuff like that just doesn't get funding until something really bad happens. Take Homeland Security. There were people in Congress and the intelligence community pushing for a 'Department of Homeland Security' since the Iran Embassy Hostage crisis. But it took something as terrible as 9/11 to actually get it put into law.

 LordofHats wrote:

djones520 wrote:
Honestly what needs to happen is for the government to completely separate its network infrastructure from the rest of the net but that's very expensive and will probably never happen until something really bad happens.

Doesn't work. Ask the Iranians. STUXNET was very possibly introduced into their systems via flash drive. Ask the US Army, Manning brought media into a SCIF and introduced it into a secure system.

It doesn't work because security is a joke. In Iran and here. During my dad's third tour in Afghanistan he took his clothes to a local cleaners and found they had a huge lost and found bin full of USB's. When he asked where they came from, the lady told him they were in soldier's clothes. He took them, had them checked, and found over 100 classified files on the USB's. Just laying there. In a laundromat. In Afghanistan.

Having gakky security right now, is not an excuse to keep having gakky security. I'm the first person to stand up and say if someone wants to get into a system. They WILL get into it. I recognize that. But there's a point where your doing too much to secure a system and a point where you're practically doing nothing at all and a lot of government systems just aren't secure at all right now.

I had a thumb drive that was marked Secret NOFORN that had 100's of pictures of ducks on it. It's a shame it was never left unsecured so someone could say they'd seen hundreds of classified files.

 AustonT wrote:
I had a thumb drive that was marked Secret NOFORN that had 100's of pictures of ducks on it. It's a shame it was never left unsecured so someone could say they'd seen hundreds of classified files.

My dad is a Colonel in MI and at the time worked for NRO. So no. I'm not just spinning a yarn to sound cool. He couldn't believe soldiers were being so reckless.

 LordofHats wrote:

 AustonT wrote:
I had a thumb drive that was marked Secret NOFORN that had 100's of pictures of ducks on it. It's a shame it was never left unsecured so someone could say they'd seen hundreds of classified files.

My dad is a Colonel in MI and at the time worked for NRO. So no. I'm not just spinning a yarn to sound cool. He couldn't believe soldiers were being so reckless.

The thing is... we're all vulnerable.

It's very hard to stop a determined hacker... read up on the Black Hat convention in Vegas.

What we have is to build redundancies and other failsafes to mitigate these sort of attacks.

 LordofHats wrote:

 AustonT wrote:
I had a thumb drive that was marked Secret NOFORN that had 100's of pictures of ducks on it. It's a shame it was never left unsecured so someone could say they'd seen hundreds of classified files.

My dad is a Colonel in MI and at the time worked for NRO. So no. I'm not just spinning a yarn to sound cool. He couldn't believe soldiers were being so reckless.

I didn't say you were spinning a yarn, I said I had a thumb drive with 100's of pictures of ducks.
Sensitive much?

 AustonT wrote:
I didn't say you were spinning a yarn, I said I had a thumb drive with 100's of pictures of ducks.
Sensitive much?

Yeah... Cause an obviously sardonic statement is anything but sardonic?

There's always contributing to conversation but I guess mocking is more entertaining anyway

Like I said: Sensitive much?