Homeland Secure Data Network Secure government network gets green light The Homeland Security Department has awarded Northrop Grumman a $350 million contract to design, build and maintain a secret communications network for classified information, reports Federal Computer Weekly. The new Homeland Secure Data Network (HSDN) will allow the agency to rely less on external networks, with the first phase of construction completed by the end of this year. Unfortunately for the HSN, country wide interest in the MATRIX (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) continues to wane because of privacy concerns. The Matrix is a national database accessible only to law enforcement via secure fiber, which would allow law enforcement quick access to records from all participating states.
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  ronpinImagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana
1 edit | HSN - Home Snooping Network You don't think they'd use this network to feedback to their CALERA snooping activities eh? Oh, and unless they plan to lay their own fiber then they'll be sharing physical media or airspace with the rest of us -- at some point. From what I know from my own past in Gummit programs -- this is just another boon-doggle. It's been done several times over. | |
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| | Good and Bad I think this is a somewhat good idea due to it helps law enforcement agencies get proper and updated info on things going on. But can be bad too since it allows certain Private info be exchange which should not happen. But public records on people shouldn't be a big issue since its public already. If they can set rules as to what they can and cannot do and let the people vote than I think that would be a good thing since it allows the people to determine how much power these groups have. JMO. | |
| |  furloniumComputer Over? Virus equals Very Yes?
join:2002-05-08
Bethlehem, PA | Re: Good and Bad "...country wide interest in the MATRIX..."
lol
anyone else tired of all these silly acronyms? | |
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 Tony_BPremium
join:2001-04-18
Cranston, RI | Heh, anyone see the Deja vu??
Our tax Dollar$ at work ... again.
Wooohooo, I am so safe ... I won't lock my door from now on. Thanks HSD! | |
|  japPremium
join:2003-08-10
038xx | Things powerful eventually go to the powerful... The cynic in me sez eventually I, an early internet adopter (1982), will not use this marvelously empowering tool. I don't actually believe that I won't (I think), but my fear is:
> that privacy will be gonzo to the point of maintaining privacy will be a full-time geeky pursuit,
> that the i'net will be so laden with tracked commercialism as to be more trouble than it's worth,
> that to get things done it will be safer, easier, cheaper, and -when you factor in all the time learning/implementing/maintaining security/hardware/connectivity/yada,yada- faster to do them the old fashioned way. Makes dealing with actual humans begin to look appealing, don't it? | |
| | | | Re: Things powerful eventually go to the powerful... Isn't that the current case?
-keeping any level of privacy is beyond the average home computer user.
-the net IS so full of commercialism that again, the average user gets little real-world value - mostly entertainment only
-and 3 derives from 1 & 2
I'm not saying it is so bad that it is worthless, but realistically, the average user is so inundated with spyware, SPAM, etc., that the actual value of the internet for all the purposes it has been traditionally touted for (research, world-wide communications, expanding human understanding) is minimal at best. (Unless of course you mean porn, FWD: jokes and AOL ICP fans speaking their incomprehensible language) | |
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 gwionwild colonial boyPremium,ExMod 2001-08
join:2000-12-28
Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:1 | Welll.... I sure hope... ... they aren't planning on trying to share THIS ol' internet with the worms and crackers for any kind of secret communications... as I understand things, this is an "extranet" for their own use. Makes sense to me. Who knows, they may stumble over something like DARPA did nearly forty years ago; remember, well into the seventies, very few in the private sector could imagine any use for an internetwork, at all, outside of corporate, government and academic environments... DARPA was certainly contemplating a useful technology beyond just the networking the military-industrial complex, but they sure weren't contemplating eBay or Amazon in 1969...
--
Semper Eadem
"The seas shall rise up in the twinkling of an eye, and the dust of the ancients shall be restored. The winds shall fight together with a dreadful blast, and their sound shall reach the stars." | |
| | | | Re: Welll.... I sure hope... Ahem... I hope the spooks decide to try their "Magic Lantern" & "Carnivor" toys on all the computers on this sUpEr SeCrEt ( just a minute... I need to get my decoder ring outa my closet ) who knows what they'll catch!! | |
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| | If they have any sense... If they have any sense it won't be IP-based.
The first idiot connected to this new network and conventional internal or public networks will probably have packet forwarding turned on. They need to use somthing either non-routable or that doesn't use standard network stacks. IP can be routed and fed over derned near anything, from USB and Firewire to serial and parallel ports - not to mention 802.11 or BlueTooth. | |
| | | SCMODS was better than MATRIX Anybody remember that movie?:D | |
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