Study Criticizes Government on Cybersecurity Research

John Markoff's article in The New York Times summarizes and comments on the PITAC Cyber Security Report.

" 'The federal government is largely failing in its responsibility to protect the nation from cyberthreats,' said Edward D. Lazowska, chairman of the computer science and engineering department at the University of Washington and co-chairman of the panel. 'The Department of Homeland Security simply doesn't "get" cybersecurity. They are allocating less than 2 percent of their science and technology budget to cybersecurity, and only a small proportion of this is forward-looking.' "

"Peter Neumann, an independent computer scientist at SRI International, a research center in Menlo Park, Calif., said that both Congress and the Bush administration had been neglecting civilian Internet security research. 'The problem is that there is no sense of the importance of research in this Congress or in this administration,' said Mr. Neumann, who consults for the government."