White House Selects Cybersecurity Chief

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration on Monday selected Amit Yoran, a respected software executive from Symantec Corp., as the nation's new cybersecurity chief inside the Department of Homeland Security.

Yoran, who is hardly a household name but well known within the cybersecurity community, will be the government's evangelist for convincing Americans to improve their computer defenses against hackers, disgruntled employees, commercial rivals and foreign governments.

Yoran, a Symantec vice president, also will be responsible for carrying out dozens of recommendations in the administration's "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," a set of proposals to better protect computer networks.

snip>

Yoran said he hasn't yet talked with government ethics lawyers, but he said Symantec, a leading cybersecurity and antivirus vendor, wouldn't be shown any special treatment by the department.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-cybersecurity-chief,0,7370405.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[benfranklin1776]

1. Conflicts of interest and appearances of conflict mean nothing to Bushco

"Yoran, who is hardly a household name but well known within the cybersecurity community, will be the
government's evangelist for convincing Americans to improve their computer defenses against hackers,
disgruntled employees, commercial rivals and foreign governments. "

* * * *

"Yoran said he hasn't yet talked with government ethics lawyers, but he said Symantec, a leading cybersecurity and
antivirus vendor, wouldn't be shown any special treatment by the department."

So here we have a situation where an individual will be "evangelizing" for policies that encourage the buying of the very products made by his company and therefore he may stand to directly benefit financially. He should not be appointed to this position unless he divests himself entirely of any financial interest in Symantec. Thus it must determined if he has a Cheney style deferred compensation package AND to really avoid the appearance of impropriety he should agree not to work in the industry for five years upon his departure from the current position.

On edit: I see in the article where he maintained that he would have no equity position in the company thus the inquiry should move on to the Cheney/ Halliburton problem of deferred compensation and the general problem this administration has with former officials turning around to represent the industries they are regulating as was the case with the two EPA officials who went to work for power companies after clean air act rule changes were approved.

2. Warning?

What if "disgruntled employees" are whistleblowers,and the companies are trying to hide their fraud?

[realFedUp]

3. What was that movie

that had a large cybersecurity firm plant something on
everyone's computer through their security software?

[benfranklin1776]

4. Wasn't it the NET?

n/t

[realFedUp]

7. I can't remember

but the point of the film seemed to stay with me...

[arcane1]

5. "wouldn't be shown any special treatment by the department"

I believe Dick said the same thing about Halliburton, too

I'm no psychic but I envision a rise in Symantec stocks...

[benfranklin1776]

6. You are wise Grasshopper!

I foresee the same possible happenstance, yes. :evilgrin:

[bemildred]

8. Symantec is a Windoze-parasitic company.

This means that the pursuit of "security" will not
include anything that threatens Windoze monopoly.