The U.S. government has now gone through four cyberscurity czars in less than two years, with the one-day notice resignation of Amit Yoran, following Howard Schmidt, Rand Beers (who joined the Kerry campaign), and Richard Clarke (who wrote a best-selling book and testified before Congress).

Apparently one argument for pushing cybersecurity down into the bowels of DHS is that the Internet and computers in general are just another homeland infrastructure that needs securing, same as the electrical grid or airlines. Albert-László Barabási (ALB) in his book Linked remarks on how sufficiently close connectivity can cause a state change, in the same manner as water turning to ice. It isn’t electrical utility grids that are interconnecting the world as never before; it is communications systems, led by the Internet, which is rapidly subsuming many other communciations systems. All the other infrastructures increasingly depend on the Internet. Even if it isn’t actually causing a state change, the Internet has global reach and fast speed, producing both its great value via Metcalfe’s Law (many users) and Reed’s Law (many groups) and its potential for cascade failure.

The Internet’s potential for cascade failure is also because of its organization as a scale-free network with many hubs of various sizes. Yet this is also what makes it so rubust unless the hubs are directly targetted. Meanwhile, we hear comparisons to the ability of the FAA to ground all aircraft in U.S. airspace. I don’t really see that an off swtich for the U.S. portion of the Internet would make the Internet more robust, even if it were easy to separate out exactly what that portion was.

I think the U.S. government would benefit by appointing a new cybersecurity head with sufficient powers to get something done, and preferably somebody with deep understanding of the Internet. How about Bruce Schneier or Dan Geer?

-jsq