Tag Archives: President Obama

AVG

TechHire: A New Initiative to Pay Dividends in Diversity in Tech

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Companies and organizations from Starbucks to the Federal Government are desperate for tech workers, so there is no reason not to recruit the best talent whatever it resides.

It was also encouraging to see that these concerns are ongoing at our country’s highest levels. On March 9, President Obama announced the TechHire Initiative before the National League of Cities. It’s a new program that includes a grass-roots campaign to achieve greater diversity in the tech world.

In his remarks to city leaders, the President stated, “When these jobs go unfilled, it’s a missed opportunity for the workers, but it’s also a missed opportunity for your city, your community, your county, your state, and our nation.  And here’s something else:  If we’re not producing enough tech workers, over time that’s going to threaten our leadership and global innovation, which is the bread and butter of the 21st century economy.” You can learn more here.

It was no coincidence that President Obama unveiled the campaign at the National League of Cities convention, which is made up of mayors and community leaders from around the U.S., as TechHire involves local communities, local leaders in a number of ways.

For example, on a training and teaching basis, it includes universities and community colleges but also nontraditional approaches like “coding bootcamps,” and online courses.

The President announced that 20 cities and regions across the country, from Louisville to Portland, will work together to recruit and place applicants in some the 120,000 vacant positions and to develop more fast track tech training opportunities.

In other words, it’s addressing the current employee shortage and the pipeline issue simultaneously – a great approach, in my opinion.

The President also announced $100 million in new Federal investments to train and connect more workers to good jobs in technology and other in-demand fields. The initiative will provide training and employment support to those in need including individuals with child care responsibilities, disabilities, limited English or disconnected youth.

Here are just a few examples of the initiative in action:

  • In St. Louis, 150 employers will partner with local non-profit Launchcode, to train women and underrepresented minorities for tech jobs.
  • In New York City, the Tech Talent Pipeline has announced new commitments to prepare college students in the City University of New York system for and connect them to paid internship opportunities at local tech companies.
  • A $100 million competition has been launched to connect Americans with disabilities and disconnected youth to jobs in technology and other in-demand fields.

 

I know many of my readers are small business owners and managers.  I think we can all agree that tech and innovation are major parts of any business proposition these days.

I’m excited about this new initiative because it addresses a real need for employers. It is inclusive and engages local communities, where real work and progress can be made—and tracked!  People can get involved and learn more at #TechHire on social media and follow @WhiteHouseOSTP on Twitter.

Security

Researcher Tries to Get Ahead of CFAA Changes, Dumps 10M Sanitized Passwords

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A dump of 10 million sanitized usernames and passwords was released online, sparking debate over its legality in light of proposed changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

AVG

Toy drones continue to cause problems

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The latest incident involving a drone has more serious implications than buzzing a neighbor’s yard. In January, a drone crashed into a tree on the South Lawn of the White House.  Apparently, the drone was small enough to avoid detection by the White House security radar.

The man who was operating the drone is an employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. After seeing the story on the news the following day, he contacted officials to confess. He later admitted that he had been drinking.

The point is that drone adventures are getting increasingly (and literally) out of control.

The White House incident comes just days after the Department of Homeland Security held a conference in Arlington, Va., on the dangers that such drones pose to the nation’s critical infrastructure and government facilities.

The New York Times reported that the conference exhibited a DJI Phantom drone — the same type of drone that reportedly crashed at the White House.

Image courtesy of gizmag

 

However, the drone on display at Homeland Security’s conference had three pounds of fake explosives attached to demonstrate how easy it would be to weaponize. Frightening.

The President said in an interview with CNN that he has instructed federal agencies to examine and address the broader problem and the need for regulations on drone technology.

As the President wisely noted, regarding drones, “We don’t yet have the legal structures and the architecture both globally and within individual countries to manage them the way that we need to.”

Part of the idea for legislation or enforcement, the President said, “is seeing if we can start providing some sort of framework that ensures that we get the good and minimize the bad.”

Legislation and regulation needs to happen soon. Even though it is illegal to fly drones in Washington DC, that appears to be a small deterrent.

Let’s see how this unfolds. There are privacy and security hazards with drones that everyone needs to be aware of, and this incident might spur some real action.

 

AVG

Why you should celebrate Data Protection Day 2015

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So what is Data Protection Day? It’s a holiday proclaimed by the Council of Europe on January 28, 2007. The goal is to raise awareness and promote privacy and data protection best practices.

It is globally celebrated and in the U.S. often referred to as Data Privacy and Protection Day, but it’s still a holiday! So tell your boss, and take a day to yourself. In the words of Madonna, rather the spirit, perhaps we should “Celebrate.”

If we took a data day, took some time to celebrate,
Just one data out of life
It would be, it would be so nice

Everybody spread the word… We’re gonna have a celebration
All across the world, In every nation

It’s time for the good data practices… Forget about the bad, oh yeah…
We need a holiday…

 

On this anniversary of Data Protection Day, the promise is matched only by the tension. In the past year, we’ve seen unprecedented data hacks, continued instances of government surveillance, and an ongoing tide of commercial data collection and use practices that don’t always bode well for consumers.

Data Protection Day 2015

 

This is amplified by real concerns for people’s safety, life, and liberty. Criminal enterprises continue to engage in identity theft and financial fraud.  Terrorist attacks, like those recently in France, further fuel our fears and heighten the impulse to use more invasive state surveillance techniques.

Add to this the sea-change in the landscape created by mobile devices, which will look like nothing compared to the changes ushered in by the Internet of Things. We have more data, more collection points, more providers, more sensitive information, and growing commercial and state appetites to use the data that define our lives.

So why celebrate? Well, a set of forces seems to be converging that indicates a corresponding change in attitude to better protect consumers and change the pH of the ecosystem so it’s more habitable for businesses and users alike.

The FTC released a thoughtful report on IoT that gives us a framework to get ahead of the changes. President Obama recently proposed new cyber-security and data breach legislation that is promising, provided the voices of civil society advocates like CDT and the EFF remain engaged.

The EU continues to work on updating the data protection act to address both the technological and societal changes that have occurred since it was first drafted. More importantly though, the heat in this space has been turned up. There is more debate.  More industry leaders are devoting increasingly more mind share.  Notions of choice, transparency, control, and reasonable defaults – the very threads that weave the fabric of trust that we depend upon – are no longer dirty words.

While these may seem like concepts beyond your desktop, there is a lot each of us can do to take back some of our privacy. Today, I actively managed my privacy settings in iOS. I disabled location services for all those apps where it didn’t make sense.  Why for example do the camera or ADP (payroll) apps need to use my location in the background when I’m not using them? Something doesn’t seem right.

Google Maps Sharing

 

Some apps, I was pleasantly surprised to find, like Google Maps and ESPN’s SportsCenter, do give me the option to turn location services on only “while using.” This makes sense to me and is an example of privacy forward design that gives users better and more refined choices.  The fact that the interface exists at all is an example of transparency that didn’t exist in earlier versions of iOS, and a good sign that things are changing.

All this is to say – the tide is shifting. In this transition, there is more opportunity than we can imagine. We don’t believe that users have to trade privacy and security to benefit from the wealth of data-enabled services available now and soon to come.

Today there is growing interest in shaping a future that is more people-centric than device-centric, and that properly reflects the human rights that we expect. I am optimistic that there is more future than there is past. That’s something to celebrate.

AVG

Will 2015 be the biggest yet for Cybersecurity?

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President Obama’s recently announced comprehensive new cybersecurity proposal for the U.S., highlighted in his State of the Union address (you can see a full transcript of this address here), puts the issue of cybersecurity where it should be: front and center.

The high-profile cyber-attacks and hacks of the past year have drawn a mainstream spotlight to cybersecurity. As the President emphasized in his address: “No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids.”

What are my thoughts? I think this is a real, actionable step in the right direction to increase the war on cyber-attacks and protect consumers and businesses.

The new Presidential cybersecurity proposal, officially announced  on December 19 at  the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, aims to move to quicker and more active security breach and threat reporting.

Image courtesy of The Guardian

According to the White House announcement, the proposal would create a more proactive environment for companies and organizations in the private sector to share security breaches with the government. The proposal, for example, would criminalize the sale of stolen financial data, and mandate that companies notify consumers about data breaches, as well as protect companies from liability.

As stated by the White House, “Specifically, the proposal encourages the private sector to share appropriate cyber threat information with the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), which will then share it in as close to real-time as practicable with relevant federal agencies and with private sector-developed and operated Information.”

Information sharing provides a way to get a real-time response to these breaches. But it’s the old left-hand, right-hand problem.  Information sharing would speed up an organized response to a data breach or cyber-threat and allow a concerted response. But there remain legitimate concerns in many camps about the information shared.

This proposal seems to be well crafted in that it recognizes a general apprehension of handing over information to the government, a genuine concern (even an obsession) for many. The plan seeks to mollify privacy concerns by requiring participating companies to comply with a set of restrictions, such as removing “unnecessary personal information” and to protect personal information that has been shared.

A national standard in the United States for reporting breaches has been a long time coming. If you’re a company that has been hacked, your obligations are different in different states. If your information has been hacked, a company’s obligation to report it to you currently depends on the regulations of the state you reside in, which simply doesn’t make sense. If you’ve been hacked by someone from Russia, for example, does it matter whether you live in Connecticut or Texas? The problem is a global one, but a national plan is a great move.

The new cybersecurity proposal has critics and supporters lining up in debate.  And the prospect is real that this cybersecurity plan like previous proposals could become stalled in Congress.

“cybersecurity needs to be proactive in preventing and detecting cyber crime”.

We all need to focus on the idea that cybersecurity is not just reactive, but needs to be proactive – in preventing and detecting cyber crime. The President’s proposal is a step along that path.

I’m looking forward to a next step and results of the newly announced Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford on February 13, 2015 which will convene a wide variety of groups for industry, private and public – to help shape public and private sector efforts to protect consumers and companies from growing network threats.

The good news is that momentum for cybersecurity is building. If we can get business, government, and the security industry in this country working from the same digital page, the benefits could be tremendous.

It’s a critical and very exciting time to be in digital security.