Learning to share

Is this the start of something good or the start of the next big scandal?  Today the House of Representatives intelligence panel voted to approved a bill to share sensitive and classified with defense contractors and their service providers and vice versa.  In the Reuters article the bill would expand an existing program where the federal government would share data with a larger audience.

The good part of this makes me think of the goal of the FBI Infragard program.  Infragard's main purpose is to share information within a trusted community.  Infragard screens potential members before allowing them to join.  Members are required to agree to specific rules.  Once met, members know they can trust sharing information that might help another member of the same industry or simply a fellow man (when the information is not confidential).

Within in a civilized society, sharing is a good thing.  Sharing, even within a civilized society, also brings risks.  Can the federal government trust the NSA and the expanded list of Internet Service Providers (ISP)?  What measures are being taken to ensure this sensitive or classified information is properly protected, especially from those suspected of attacking companies and other countries?

The article discusses that the bill expressly prohibits the federal government from colluding with ISPs to gather information about private citizens amounting to government surveillance of private citizens.  The bill was amended to ensure that all data would be used on for cyber security or national security.

It will come to no surprise that we're all humans.  The military is famous for the Counter Terrorism briefings that were held, and maybe still are.  During those briefings we were warned about the means that the 'enemy' was willing to use to get the information we had.  I remember the foreign born woman falling all over some knucklehead jarhead to get him to give her sensitive information.  Maybe they still do this.  If they do, I'm sure at least one of the subjects has changed a little.

We are civilized and we're smarter than we were 20 some years ago.  We think we know who the enemy is and we think we know how to effectively manage and protect data.  People are the weakest link though.  I'm not really sure it's possible to protect the data once it leaves the source.  It would be nice to think that all Americans had our best interests at heart.  Too many people are interested in getting their five minutes of fame so I am expecting that, while I think that sharing the information is good, I'm waiting for the day when we learn that the data fell into the wrong hands and this turns into finger pointing and further rage about the government.