A Business Card from the Past

I was sorting out something or other last night and knocked over the pile of business cards I have on a desk. I have exchanged business cards will all sorts of people over the years, I don't throw them away. Ones that I use get put in my Rolodex (yes, even in the digital world I use a Rolodex because I can't remember the name of the people I'm looking for, but riffling through the cards I can often find them). Ones that I just collected I put on a pile. I have lots of piles.

The top one was a former student. Then someone from One Laptop Per Child. And someone from Transparency International that I met at a party where I was just being WiseWife. And then:

WikiLeaks.org
Home of the ethical leaking movement
Julien D'Assangé
Advisory Board

A telephone number and two email addresses, one from Harvard.

Where did I meet him? I have a diffuse memory of standing outside the c-base at night, talking with two geek boys of unspecific age. One was working on the Free Haven project, the other on a project where people could do whistleblowing anonymously. We had an interesting and animated discussion, apparently exchanged business cards, and parted ways. The Free Haven card is in my Rolodex, because I tried (unsuccessfully) repeatedly to interest students for the idea of anonymous computing. Maybe they are more interested now.

Where's the Head of Security?

I had a nice chat with a gentleman in the know this evening about WikiLeaks. Since he was speaking to me as a private person and not in an official capacity, he shall remain nameless. He brought up the issue that has been bothering him since this whole thing broke:

Why was it possible to obtain this much data - much of it marked secret - without someone knowing?

Who was (still is? I would imagine this person assigned to latrine detail in the meantime) head of security at the State Department? They have themselves a "Bureau of Diplomatic Security". Isn't it their job to keep an eye on the data floating around and the people with access to it? They have all this theater about having to have security clearances in order to see certain documents.

Of course, I've always thought it was a farce ever since doing my doctorate. There were papers that I wanted to read that pertained to my dissertation, but they could not be sent outside the United States and could only be read by a US citizen. Since I was at that time still a US citizen, I flew over, read the documents, and took lots of notes.

Oh, wait - they apparently didn't have anyone assigned to computer security. Look at this job announcement:

DS To Recruit Security Protective Specialists
On Monday, December 21, 2010, Diplomatic Security will open the position of Security Protective Specialist. The application period will close Thursday, January 20, 2011.  Interested individuals may access the announcement through www.usajobs.gov.

Apparently, Eric J Boswell is still the head of security.  If I was Hillary Clinton, I would have had his head on a plate the day after WikiLeaks broke. Why are the commentators in the US not demanding that Something Be Done about the computer security up at State?

Oh, maybe this is why:

Ambassador Boswell earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University, and served in the U.S. Army. He speaks French.

Does Stanford offer computer science degrees as a B.A.? I realize that security is more than just computers, but it would be useful if the guys at the top actually understood computers.

The gentleman and I pondered the state of computer security at weapons sites around the globe. This sent a shiver down both of our spines, so we called it an evening, wished each other a Merry Christmas and went out into the cold and snow.

WikiLeaks

I've been meaning to write something about WikiLeaks for days, but I don't seem to have any time, as I spend any excess minutes I might have reading about WikiLeaks and interpreting it for others. So many people have no idea what a wiki is, what WikiLeaks is, how it differs from Wikipedia, that I feel called upon to try and educate them.

The bizarreness of Sarah Palin calling for Julian Assange's death for not actually breaking any US laws, but embarrassing the hell out of the State Department, coupled with the Chinese calling Liu Xiaobo (the Nobel Peace Prize winner 2010) a terrorist makes me wonder if I have slipped over to some parallel universe where common sense and logical thinking have disappeared and been replaced by Newspeak and Big Brother. Or Sister.

Anyway, this is the best comment on WikiLeaks that I have found for a number of days:




Oh, and I really want to see the list of all the other guys who had broken condoms and are now being sought world-wide by Interpol. 'Cause I now expect them to go after each and every one. And after the guys who did worse.