[Infowarrior] - Cybersecurity Quiz: Can you tell Obama from Bush?

[Richard Forno]

  May 29, 2009 12:19 PM PDT
A Cybersecurity Quiz: Can you tell Obama from Bush?
by Declan McCullagh
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10252263-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

The U.S. president has announced a comprehensive cybersecurity  
strategy for the federal government, saying Internet-based threats  
have risen "dramatically" and the country "must act to reduce our  
vulnerabilities."

A 76-page White House document calls for a new way of looking at  
Internet and computer security, saying that private-public  
partnerships are necessary, collaboration with international  
organizations will be vital, and that privacy and civil liberties must  
be respected in the process.

Sound familiar? The year was 2003, and the president was George W.  
Bush, who wrote the introduction to what he called a "National  
Strategy to Secure Cyberspace."

On Friday, President Obama announced his 76-page "Cyberspace Policy  
Review" -- with precisely the same number of pages as his  
predecessor's -- at an event at the White House.

While the Bush document discusses centralizing cybersecurity  
responsibilities in the Department of Homeland Security and the Obama  
document shifts them to the White House, the two reports are  
remarkably similar. Perhaps this should be no surprise: Obama selected  
Melissa Hathaway, who worked for the director of national intelligence  
in the Bush administration and was director of an Bush-era "Cyber Task  
Force," to conduct the review.

To test your political acumen, we've taken excerpts from both and  
placed them side-by side in the following chart. Can you tell which  
quotations come from which administration? (An answer key is at the  
end.)

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