PSA: Looking For A Few Good Geeks

If you're a geek with security experience, and can get to either Washington D.C. or to any of the Red Cross evacuation shelters, the American Red Cross needs you:

[Needed:] technically savvy volunteers who can help in two ways - at the shelters in implementing Windows and Cisco systems for the volunteers and people living there, and at Red Cross headquarters in the Washington DC area to improve the implementation of security software tools that have been implemented but are not fully exploited. Here's how you can help.

1. People who live near the shelters (or who could get there and who have family/friends with whom you could stay), and who have lots of experience deploying Windows XP and/or Cisco systems, please register your willingness to help at this link. The Red Cross will contact you directly.

2. People in the Washington DC area (or who could get here quickly) and would volunteer to help, and who have substantial experience with any of the following:

• tuning Cisco IDS
• tuning NetIQ Manager
• tuning McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator

please do two things:

a. register online, and b. send me an email at [paller at sans.org] telling me which tool you know well and how available and close you are so I can set up a contact for you.

SANS is also donating $100,000 to the Red Cross, and we learned today that at least one leading security vendor, TippingPoint, has offered to give the Red Cross the equipment they need to protect their networks - without asking for compensation.

If you know of people or companies in the IT or security field who are trying to make a difference in the recovery effort, please let us know what you or they are doing [Email paller at sans.org].

LJ Does the Right Thing

voltron_rex reports that LiveJournal eventually Did The Right Thing on the billing snafu for saansaansaan's journal, and she now has her journal back.

Terrorist victory in the UK

Yeah, you heard me right:  Terrorist victory.

What victory?

This one.  In the UK as in the US, terrorists have not cowed the people, who are for the most part standing there with defiance on their faces and "Bring it on, you miserable cowards!" on their lips.  But they have cowed the government.

Civil liberties may have to be "eroded" to protect Britons from terrorism, the head of security service MI5 has said.

[...]

[Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5] said civil liberties were valued and there was no wish to damage those "hard-fought for" rights.

"But the world has changed and there needs to be a debate on whether some erosion of what we all value may be necessary to improve the chances of our citizens not being blown apart as they go about their daily lives," she said.

In the US, four years ago this day, a successful terror attack shocked the nation ... and the government caved, and did exactly what the terorrists wanted:  It took away freedoms and liberties from the American people that the terrorists could not possibly ever take away by themselves.  Now it looks as though the July 7 bombings in London may have achieved the same end in the UK.

Are our governments just too STUPID to see what's happening?  Or is it just that they and the terrorists are playing perfectly into each other's hands?

Things to remember about 9/11

Lilo, the head anarch of freenode, mentioned a very important thing about 9/11 that is far too easily forgotten.

Three thousand people died, yes.  And this should not be forgotten or forgiven.

But we must also never forget that twenty-five thousand people made it out.