1) SCADA networks don't get to company Intranets or the Internet.
2) Disable any portable access devices, from USB ports (thumb drives etc.) to CD/DVD optical drives.
3) All software is clean room tested and deployed by technicians. Only authorized Technicians are allowed to install or change any software configuration on the system.
4) Vulnerability Testing is done in an isolated lab environment to weed out any potential problems with the system.
5) When in doubt, repeat starting at step #1

http://mikerogers.house.gov/legislation/sponsoredbills.htm

The only thing this guy has sponsored and has become law are re authorization of the Patriot Act and two Funding actions for National Intelligence.

This guy is in bed with the NSA and the CIA, that's where the legislation came from. He thinks that spying on Americans is the best way to protect us from all those folks in the Middle East and China. I think he's a cross between J. Edgar Hoover and Jack Valenti. Also don't forget who's in charge of the MPAA now, good old Chris Dodd. The stench is all around on this one folks.

Congress doesn't write the laws they actually pass, they may change the wording or an ammendment but by and large they come from staff or from lobbyists. In the case of CISPA I would have to think that some federal agency decided to push it forward, possibly the NSA? Anyway, I'd really be interested in understanding who actually wrote vs. sponsored this piece of crap.

All of these companies are competing for your dollars directly and information that they can sell about you to other companies. instead of mining minerals, they're mining our data. You see it with things like so called anonymous data collection and researchers who have found that they can identify people just based on that same information. Any data collection about you, your e-mails, your e-mail habits, your web browsing habits, where you have lunch, what credit cards you use, what toll roads you traverse, what street speed cameras you pass it's all potential sources for data mining and taking a little more of your freedom and privacy. If you use a credit card, trust me they are selling your information, your preferences and tracking your habits so that if a strange charge shows up, they can detect fraud. At least that's what they say to you. Where you buy something also locates you as well, so if you shop locally, guess what, people can find out where you are. It's paranoia, it's the new reality so when you get that nice free Facebook account or the free GMAIL account it does come with some Terms of Service and they can change at any time to suit their needs, not yours. Google's business just isn't on search, it's on you. Facebook isn't about social networking, it's about social data collection so for all those people who think they have privacy and use these services, guess again.

So while you may not be plugged in as a battery to supply power to an alien civilization, you are a source of rich mineral data and you're being mined daily. If you're okay with that, just take the right colored pill and go back to sleep.

It's funny you should mention that. I think that fundamentally the US mining laws being what they are and after all the fun there was after WWII with Uranium mining in the Southwest US, there is a more conservative view on some of these deposits. We have quite a bit here in the US according to this.

There was also a recent announcement of a large find in Nebraska as well so I don't really believe there will be a rare earth mineral shortage anytime soon. I think Helium will probably be depleted long before the rare earth minerals run out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L397TWLwrUU

At the present time that would be the Republicans but yes it flip flops because when the opposition is in the White House the fiscal conservancy reigns from the opposing party.

he was virtual, a hologram so he really didn't exist. Not until hard light at least and by then the show was more about the characters playing off against one another. That was the "Legion" episode AFAIR and introduced mamosian anti-matter chopsticks.

"How do you land the damn thing?" - Cat

Or that the mere publication of this API and the support for the websites costs the taxpayer over $20M/year for a social website that essentially they could get for free on Facebook? Let's face it "We the People" is a lip service brought to you by the great "Do Nothing, Spend us into a hole" leadership. I find it funny that when one party says "Let's party likes it's 1999" and the other says "Who's going to pay for all of this?" that the rest of us who voted for them wonder why nothing ever gets done in DC.

News of the future:

Lister, Kryten, the Cat and Holly?

I think you missed the point in the topic header "say it isn't so!" I realize that this is the case but again, the DMCA law is written to either remove or disable the content. That's what it says BTW, remove or disable. The latter for those ISPs/website operators who take a bit of time to at least give the content owners a chance to wrangle over the information or indeed take a quick look and say "hey, this takedown notice is BS." It's also worded specifically that if they don't act they may lose their liability protection under the DMCA. So yes, "ohh scary things will happen with lawyers. We may even get *gasp* another letter if we don't act in 5 minutes."

My point is that now this kind of case comes up, where we have a Researcher who is now going back trying to erase embarrassing things about himself via proxy and now you have hoards of folks in the third world ready to send DMCA letters to just let him do that. The DMCA is shameful, written by the entertainment industry. It's a travesty that laws passed (or lack thereof in the 112th congress) nowadays are just rubber stamped by legislators as "their own." There should be a DMCA for plagiarism of laws or at least "do you own work" should be the mantra rather than this endless supply of industry focused legislation that seems to be more and more prevalent in DC and in State Legislatures.

In the original issue here, WordPress which is almost synonymous for blogging took down damaging articles about proven research fraud. This is valuable and embarrassing information to subject and represents a distinct departure vs. printed news. So now if I post some code on a site, that shows an example on how to do something, I can have some nameless guy from India call my ISP and say that it's his and my stuff will disappear? Yeah deep down I knew that was a possibility (especially if I don't pay my ISP bill) but again, WordPress should have merely disabled the content, contact the owner and said "you have 7 days to let us know why we shouldn't delete your content/disable your site." That's allowable under the DMCA and it shows that the host of the content is trying to be reasonable to all parties involved.

This is absurd. It clearly looks like the Reputation Firm hired by this guy works with some nameless organization in India. For WordPress to honor this DMCA take down request blindly makes me more reluctant to ever use them. Sure I see blog posts hosted by them all the time but seriously why would a reputable organization (if you can call WordPress that) would remove the content without first checking with the blog owners or verifying the claims, then they are truly the bad guys here.

Is this something where the wayback machine could help?

I find this amusing because Reagan National Airport already has one of the most restrictive air traffic patterns in the country. I can see it now, take off to the North and then do a hard bank left to avoid the No Fly Zone and the Washington Monument, then a bank right to avoid the blimp. I can see commercial pilots now having to have simulator sessions to avoid tethered dirigible avoidance. Of course this means that airfare prices will increase by 50% to cover this training.

What they're building are barrage balloons which have been used since before WWII. While mildly effective, I seriously doubt that a well heeled terrorist organization will have their own air force or cruise missiles. Maybe a rogue nation, such as the PRK perhaps but then again I'd think they'd know well in advance of that kind of attack. DC is less than 36 square miles and if all of our strategic national assets are there, then we're in deep S**T. There's lots of bureaucrats of course and Congress and their staff, but could we do without them for awhile? Yeah, I know that's wishful thinking. Does anybody in DC honestly think these Rube Goldberg devices will actually do anything or just be a giant, taxpayer funded, deficit increasing waste of money? Obviously not.

I'm stocking up on Jiffy Pop now and waiting for the first set of severe thunderstorms to dislodge them and then have the F16s scramble to shoot them down. Some of the debris will be flammable and will land on the South East of DC, causing severe panic and riots. I just can't wait.

As Patton said:

Even if they are fronted by balloons.

Well DEC decided with VMS that RMS was the best way to do things. Don't get me wrong but a Raw file was certainly great vs. SEQ-ASC
and having to do the convert. It brought new meaning to the text file scenarios vs. \n and MS-DOS formats with \r\n and then throw in SEQ-ASC. There was a great little utility on the DECUS tapes that would just figure it out and convert it from SEQ-ASC to UNIX or to MS-DOS and back from all the combinations. Now throw in integration with TOPS-10 or TOPS-20 and you could really have some headaches. Then there was CKermit which actually did a great job of fixing this confusion as well (for text mode). All in All I guess we didn't have it bad vs. the Mainframe guys with their SIXBIT and Radix-50 nightmares.