WASHINGTON-Interoperability is not easy, but it is something that needs to happen and it is something Congress is concerned about, said Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the House cybersecurity subcommittee.
“One of the things we talk a lot about in the halls of Congress is interoperability,” said Thornberry. “We have made some good first steps in getting everybody talking about how we can have a basis and standard of interoperability at a specific level. We have had some interim fixes in hardware and software that have helped in the meantime. You are going to have to have a national roadmap that deals with spectrum issues and a whole variety of things before you really solve the interoperability problem, which we know was an issue on Sept. 11 and continues to be.”
Interoperability between first responders has long been a conversational topic for policy-makers, but Thornberry said the problem is complex.
“It seems like it ought to be simple for everybody to go out and have the same radios so the police in one county can talk to the firemen in the next, and yet when you get into it, there are a number of complex issues that technology alone simply will not solve,” said Thornberry.
Thornberry appeared Monday evening at the National Press Club Tech Talk. His topic was advertised as cybersecurity, but he touched on many homeland-security topics. For example, he said he has been frustrated with the development of the Department of Homeland Security.
“The direct answer is no, the Homeland-Security Department has not met my expectations or my hopes, and there are a variety of factors. It took forever to get people into DHS,” said Thornberry. “It took a long time to get up and running.”
Thornberry would like to create an assistant secretary within DHS to oversee cybersecurity. “I believe cyber has unique challenges,” he said.
Unlike many experts who believe the next major terrorist attack will include a cyber component, Thornberry is not so sure. “It is pretty unlikely that terrorists are going to use the Internet to control a nuclear-power plant or a hydrological dam or some way this is going to hurt or kill huge numbers of Americans. It is not something to ignore, but it is unlikely,” he said. “We know terrorists use the Internet to communicate with one another, and it makes it very difficult to trace so they have an interest in keeping it up and running to facilitate their own communications.”
Thornberry did acknowledge that there is an intersection between the physical critical infrastructure-like the telecommunications network-and the cyber network, and that attacking both simultaneously could happen.
“I think the intersection between the physical and cyber infrastructure is a topic of high-interest among terrorists-partly as I mentioned in a combination sort of attack-you can increase the devastation, you can reduce the response, you can increase the chaos by combining them,” said Thornberry.
Cybersecurity is seen as one of the challenges that must be overcome before broadband can become universal, according to Scott Kriens, chairman and chief executive officer of Juniper Networks. Kriens was one of the experts that CNET.com asked to participate in a broadband roundtable that was posted Monday morning.
“With dial-up, people generally logged on for an hour or so-a brief window for hackers and viruses to contaminate a home personal computer or network. As broadband maintains an ongoing link to the Internet, users and networks are more vulnerable and susceptible to malicious attacks. This is a problem that will grow proportionally with the ever-growing number of broadband users,” wrote Kriens. “This year, the presidential campaign is giving broadband much-needed exposure, but it needs to be included on the national agenda. In addition, to government policies such as subsidies for schools and other public agencies, the industry needs to examine ways to protect and improve our networks.”
