Category Archives: Security

Words That Comfort and 9/11

I like the idea of poets reaching out and sharing their perspective with a wider audience, but I wonder if Cristin’s work was really was as introspective as this news blurb sounds? The Philadelphia Weekly reports:

“I don’t think a news break alert can flash on our televisions without people thinking it’ll be somehow linked to a terrorist attack,” says 28-year-old author, screenwriter and slam poet Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, who’s appeared on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam. Aptowicz will present her updated speech “Words That Comfort” at the Kelly Writers House on the fifth anniversary of the attacks. Originally presented at a symposium on terrorism at Hastings College in Nebraska in fall 2005, the speech explores the effects of 9/11 on a community of poets from the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Well, news flashes linked to terrorists or the weather… Here are some other poems of 9/11.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
(An extract of a performance by Danny Solis can be found on Poetry Slam)

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,–
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,–
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,–
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,–
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

The new US Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security

I am not sure what to make of the news that a former employee of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) has been appointed to Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security.

First of all, sourcewatch has some extremely disturbing background information on the lobbying done by the ITAA on behalf of electronic voting companies:

ITAA has also tried to help its electronic voting machine manufacturer members combat an onslaught of negative publicity from technical problems, faulty security measures, concerns raised by computer scientists and security experts, and perceived conflicts of interest of company executives (especially Diebold Election Systems). It drafted a proposed PR plan for e-voting companies to “generate positive public perception.”[12], Draft of PR plan (PDF)

ITAA has opposed one of the more modest demands of e-voting critics — a paper receipt verifying each vote. ITAA president Harris Miller was quoted in the May 2004 issue of Congressional Quarterly’s Governing Magazine: “I think that the paper verification system is kind of giving people a false sense of security… I can give you a receipt, but if I started out the day by stuffing the ballot box with 50 ballots for Bush, I haven’t actually done anything to make the system secure.” In the same article, the Election Technology Council is identified as a new trade group within ITAA for voting machine manufacturers.

This stands in contradiction to Harris’ earlier remarks at the December 2003 press conference announcing the launch of the Election Technology Council, the e-voting machine manufacturers’ trade group: “The customer is always right. If the state and local election officials want paper ballots, the industry will provide those,” he remarked.[13]

If you work in information security I highly recommend you check out the “Draft of PR Plan” for Diebel. Oh, and you probably should make sure nothing breakable is near you when you read it.

Second, who is Greg Garcia? Here is Chertoff’s perspective, perhaps released by the ITAA, published on the Government Technology site:

“Greg joins the department from the Information Technology Association of America, where he was vice president for Information Security Policy and Programs. In that capacity, Greg led the public debate on cyber security policy and national cyber readiness.”

Led the public debate? I am having a hard time finding evidence of his existence prior to this announcement, let alone an outspoken role on US cyber security. Chertoff continued:

“He has worked closely with the department over the past few years in his role on the IT Sector Coordinating Council and working with industry to found the National Cyber Security Partnership. Greg helped to draft and enact the Cyber Security Research and Development Act of 2002 during his tenure with the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science.

I confess I had to lookup the NCSP. Even though I have been actively involved in information security in the private and public sectors for more than twelve years, I can not say the NCSP rings any bells. News.com provides an executive summary of their work:

Some security experts criticized the proposals as a way for companies to dodge any responsibility for the morass of security issues that plague firms and people on the Internet, a charge similar to that leveled against the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, which recommends that each Internet participant learn to secure his or her portion of the online domain.

That seems rather harsh, but what results have we seen since 2004? And on that note, the CSRDA was an allocation of $880 million over five years for research in cyber security. Wired described it this way:

Claiming that the Internet may be terrorists’ next target, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to create a new generation of “cyber warriors” to protect America’s critical infrastructures.

Interesting. With only one year of funding left, I wonder how the new generation of information security students will emerge. Will the “cyber warriors” be realized, or are they ready? Can’t say I have heard much about them or the programs since the money was allocated, and yet there have been a number of high profile breaches during that same time. I searched through all the documentation provided by the House of Representatives on HR3394 and I also did not find mention of Greg’s name. I guess lobbyists who help draft the resolutions aren’t supposed to get the recognition, so no surprise there. Chertoff continued:

Greg has also worked to strengthen encryption control regulations while with the Americans for Computer Privacy and he was active on international trade and IT policy at the Americans Electronics Association.

As in the multi-million dollar lobbyist campaign to get Congress to relax export controls? Hm, that’s interesting. Wonder if he was working for Ed Gillespie. You may draw your own conclusions but this all reminds me of some other “surprise” appointments by the Bush administration. They are hard to pin down on the issues because they really do not want you to discuss facts and find out something you might not agree with. PR for hackable voting machines and working papers that transfer liability from corporations to consumers? Where does he stand on the issues? Let us hope Greg is able to turn the tide on the Bush administration and reign in corporate governance issues that precipitate security risks. But what are the odds, really.