cybersecurity

Howard Schmidt, who was named cybersecurity coordinator and special assistant to President Obama in late 2009, is retiring from public service, The White House said today.

"It has been a tremendous honor for me to have served in this role and to have worked with such dedicated and professional colleagues both in the government and private sector," Schmidt said in a statement. "We have made real progress in our efforts to better deal with the risks in cyberspace so, around the world, we can all realize the full benefits that cyberspace brings us."

Schmidt filled a … Read more

Despite big name tech companies -- such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Oracle -- supporting the controversial Internet surveillance bill that passed in the House last week, Mozilla has come out against the legislation.

"While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security," the tech company wrote to Forbes reporter Andy Greenberg. "The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse."

Mozilla is the first major tech company to … Read more

Microsoft is no longer as enthusiastic about a controversial cybersecurity bill that would allow Internet and telecommunications companies to divulge confidential customer information to the National Security Agency.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved CISPA by a 248 to 168 margin yesterday in spite of a presidential veto threat and warnings from some House members that the measure represented "Big Brother writ large." (See CNET's CISPA FAQ.)

In response to queries from CNET, Microsoft, which has long been viewed as a supporter of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, said this evening that any law … Read more

It took a debate that stretched to nearly seven hours, and votes on over a dozen amendments, but the U.S. House of Representatives finally approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act on April 26.

Passions flared on both sides before the final vote on CISPA, which cleared the House by a comfortable margin of 248 to 168.

CISPA would "waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity," Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and onetime Web entrepreneur, said during the debate. "Allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on … Read more

The U.S. House of Representatives today approved a controversial Internet surveillance bill, rejecting increasingly vocal arguments from critics that it would do more to endanger Americans' privacy than aid cybersecurity.

By a vote of 248 to 168, a bipartisan majority approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, which would permit Internet companies to hand over confidential customer records and communications to the National Security Agency and other portions of the U.S. government.

CISPA would "waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity," said Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, … Read more

Rep. Mike Rogers, the author of a controversial Internet surveillance bill and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, isn't exactly a card-carrying civil libertarian.

The Michigan Republican has called for the execution of accused Wikileaker Bradley Manning. His CISPA bill, which passed the House of Representatives this afternoon, has been savaged as obliterating "any semblance of online privacy" for Americans and, by fellow Republilican Ron Paul, as "Big Brother writ large."

But Rogers strode onto the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives this afternoon to invoke the same Big Brother epithet to denounce … Read more

news analysis Politicians behind a surveillance bill that would let Internet companies open their networks to the U.S. government briefly found a new friend this week: a non-profit group known for its privacy advocacy.

Until yesterday, opposition to the CISPA legislation appeared to be growing, with Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and House Democrats raising new concerns. A petition opposing the bill, also known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, had garnered nearly 800,000 signatures.

Then the Center for Democracy and Technology, a well-known advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., defected from the expanding anti-CISPA … Read more

In an effort to cut down on hacking, bugs, and vulnerabilities, Google offers dollar rewards for people to hack into its Web services.

The Internet giant began swapping security research for cash over the past couple of years, but today it announced that it was upping the ante.

"In just over a year, the program paid out around $460,000 to roughly 200 individuals," Google security team members Adam Mein and Michal Zalewski wrote in a blog post. "We're confident beyond any doubt the program has made Google users safer."

As of today, hackers can … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--A senior U.S. House of Representatives aide said at an event held this evening at CNET's headquarters that he was astonished by the recent groundswell of opposition to a cybersecurity bill expected to be voted on next week.

"I'm really astounded to keep hearing this drumbeat that it's vague," Jamil Jaffer, senior counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, said during a roundtable on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA (PDF), moderated by CNET chief political correspondent Declan McCullagh and organized by Hackers and Founders.

Jaffer said that CISPA's critics … Read more