After thinking about it, I’ve decided to post my thoughts about the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Cyber Shockwave over the next few days. I have a lot of thoughts to get down. But here is my initial reaction:
It’s good that the Bipartisan Policy Center is trying to get the country thinking about important issues. Cybersecurity is certainly an important topic and our nation needs to consider cyberattacks along with all other sorts of attacks so that we are not blindly vulnerable to an enemy. But, in doing this, I believe it’s incumbent upon such “doers of good” to keep the discussion true to the subject so that it really can help us. On that note, I really think sponsors of events such as this — especially when the event is purported to be a “simulation” — have to be careful not to allow their corporate interests to enter into the simulation itself. I think the whole event would have been much better if there didn’t appear to be ulterior motives at different points during the exercise. I caught panelists several times subtly “proposing” ways in which information security companies could help the federal government. I won’t go into them right now, but I intend to discuss them further in my subsequent blot posts.
Was Cyber Shockwave terrible? No. But, did it help the country? I have to answer no.
Look for more thoughts on Cyber Shockwave in the coming days…
