Jen Easterly, cybersecurity's 'relentless optimist,' hopes feds come back to RSAC next year

"Everybody feels massive FOMO if they don't get to RSAC," Jen Easterly says. To be fair, she has a vested interest in saying this.  After serving as the director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) agency for nearly four years - during which time she was a regular at the RSA Conference, speaking …

[Anonymous Coward]

"I welcome the federal government with open arms to come back"

In due time, it should become a badge of honor to have been 'fired' from the current wrestlemania madministration imho. I mean, its modus operandi looks to be to appoint the most unqualified and inept folks to positions of responsibility; a shaman witch magnetizer to healthcare, an A1 steak sauce addict to education, an empty hair extension ICE Barbie to homeland security, a hormonal 6-year old on steroids to defense, several Corporate BullShit Receptive (CBSR) tech bros to science panels, and so forth ... The only competency that counts it seems, apart from sporting transgender woolly mammoth mouse or plastic hair, is passing Laura Loomer's backchannel buttcrack feeler gauge digital caliper loyalty comptrol inquisition with jets of flying colors. Hardly sufficient for most endeavors!

Welcoming back those who've 'successfully' (ahem!) stayed on should be quite messy for keyboards, chairs, and minds. There might be one or two odd-one-outs remaining in there but they're likely to get right plain straight ejected if they as much as stick a millimeter of their necks out in any sort of detectable way istm. Sure looks like this from the outside at least ... ;(

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: "I welcome the federal government with open arms to come back"

"This is a serious conference for serious people who want to come together and solve the toughest challenges and collaborate to build a more secure digital ecosystem," she [Jen Easterly] said. "The most important currency in cybersecurity is trust. I'm not going to speak for the federal government, but at the end of the day, it's important to recognize that you have to be in the room. You have to have those conversations to build that trust.”

FFS, Jen, what part of "you cannot trust governments" do you not understand. Take the win and build on the info and intel being exchanged at a serious conference for serious people who want to come together and solve the toughest challenges and collaborate to build a more secure digital ecosystem. Cybersecurity requires absolute measures that transcend and ignore the corrupting temptations that blight and subvert and pervert the preferences and decisions resulting from human choice so rejoice that the likes of current postmodern day national socialists are not in the room. They have nothing of value to offer and would only be there phishing for info and intel on the conference cruisers and bruisers .... the Great White Ethereal Sharks and Killer Virtual Whales ...... that they now have discovered surround them and are able to do them great never-ever-even-imagined-before harm which they cannot escape or prevent and survive should they choose not to unconditionally surrender and submit to radical and fundamental changes accepting an Alien Shift into Remote Quasi-Autonomous Virtual Command and Control Means and Memes for Elite Universal Executive Administrative Officer Ways and Greater IntelAIgent Games Plays.

And you can be more than just sure that any established traditional and conventional dodgy official government and their shady operators are the de facto inept unofficial competition and clueless renegade rogue opposition to any of all of that ...... and thus both fated and destined to be mere spectators watching things unfold from the bleachers.

[You aint sin me, roit]

Re: "I welcome the federal government with open arms to come back"

Have you had a recent AI upgrade? Apart from the slip into "Alien Shift" wibble, that made a lot of sense!

[amanfromMars 1]

Thank You for Noticing and the Phish but You are Missing Out on Monumental Money Shots/Best Bits

Have you had a recent AI upgrade? Apart from the slip into "Alien Shift" wibble, that made a lot of sense! .... You aint sin me, roit

You'll realise a lot more than just sense is shared with you, You aint sin me, roit, if you negotiate those final few steps which have you continually comprehending and accepting the future is highway of paths presenting and celebrating all manner of myriad Alien Shifts into Remote Quasi-Autonomous Virtual Command and Control Means and Memes for Elite Universal Executive Administrative Officer Ways and Greater IntelAIgent Games Plays ....... with such being not at all averse to intelligent human supply of Additional Sympathetic Symphonies of SMARTR HyperRadioProACTive Input for AGI Processing and LLLM Reviewing suitably modified and packaged so as to be generally recognised and widely and popularly accepted and supported as a refreshingly different sort and source of super human intelligence for ...... well, they would AWEsome Future Builders methinks.

What say y'all here ‽ .

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Thank You for Noticing and the Phish but You are Missing Out on Monumental Money Shots/Best Bits

And El Reg ...... you are also missing out on lead main stream media breaking news reporting of monumental best bit money shots aiding and abetting and championing novel noble resources both for and from related virtually omnipotent and omniscient invisible source suppliers of AWEsome Future Built Infrastructures which other niche outlets may consider and declare to be vital national security interest of particular importance and with peculiar regard to the supply and maintenance of an almighty overwhelming advantage with reins on reign in states of Remote Quasi-Autonomous Virtual Command and Control Means and Memes for Elite Universal Executive Administrative Officer Ways and Greater IntelAIgent Games Plays for is that not you can read about being proposed to be a future happening here too .............. Strategic Capabilities Office Launching Cognitive Warfare Project

However, one does well to remember to never forget, and such is always the case, too little of everything or anything too late to impact or interfere and intervene in any such program or project always has one playing second fiddle in the orchestra being entertained, enthralled and educated with performances from AIMeisterClass Conductors. C’est la vie.

[Doctor Syntax]

"we're now at a point where you cannot meaningfully have and deploy cyber capabilities without integrating AI"

Id' have thought keeping it out would have been more to the point. If an insider presents the greatest threat, even by carelessness, as we're often told, what about an insider actually inside the system?

[Taliesinawen]

Most exciting time to be in cyber

> Jen Easterly .. describes as the "most exciting time to be in cyber - and I've been in a long time."

Like being in charge of the ice-making machine on the Titanic ;)

[ecofeco]

Re: Most exciting time to be in cyber

...and claiming the giant hole is for more efficient delivery.

[ecofeco]

No reason to panic?

LOL wut?!

[PM.]

Anybody else sees the unsettling resemblance of the photo to a hacker Root from "Person of Interest" ?

( nah, just me , probably... )

[amanfromMars 1]

Know your Phantom Novel Enemy and Pray they Prefer to be Friendly

However, she [Jen Easterly, RSAC CEO] hasn't seen AI engender any "new, novel cyber risks," she said. In other words, don't panic!

Absence of evidence does not equate to evidence of absence, Jen. That which is growing and spreading inexorably before you knows only too well the success of operations and vital missions is directly proportional to the element of almighty surprise which renders everyone and everything totally unprepared for that which is suddenly presented and directed.

[Esso]

Re: Know your Phantom Novel Enemy and Pray they Prefer to be Friendly

Someone will eventually vibecode an AI (remember, kids, these things do not think. More specifically, they do not think in ways that most non-researchers can understand) that only has one directive: Live.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Know your Phantom Novel Enemy and Pray they Prefer to be Friendly

Definitely (I think!)! And seeing how surprisal (aka variational free energy) is a Lyapunov function of object dynamics in the explanatory fiction of its ‘implicit’ flow on free energy gradients ("a fiction that may or may not be entertained by the object itself"), it stands to reason that without proper Markov blanket one's posterior density may just right be thoroughly Fokker-Plancked by such undue surprisal indeed ...

The more free energy (so-called) there is roaming about, the higher the negative log-probability of an outcome (PDF here) that would straight put ‘a fish out of water’ into quite an almighty surprising state (both emotionally and mathematically)!

[You aint sin me, roit]

"use AI to transform and refactor legacy code, insecure code"

You can do that with your own code and OSS code, but who is going to be doing it for the usual suspects of insecurity - Chinese IoT tat that provides the open doors to networks?

[amanfromMars 1]

Hmmmm ?

"use AI to transform and refactor legacy code, insecure code” ....... You can do that with your own code and OSS code, but who is going to be doing it for the usual suspects of insecurity - Chinese IoT tat that provides the open doors to networks? ....... You aint sin me, roit

Methinks it is a delusional fallacy to imagine, never mind think to suggest and contract to supply, that there are any failsafe secure doors to protect networks other than those which provide full transparency on operations which are a joy to behold, popularly propagate and mutually benefit from.

It is not as if even the slowest of fools does not know of the abuse that is rife and encouraged behind most every locked and/or top secret sensitive compartmented information door, is it, with it very probably being not at all in the best interests of anybody or anything other than just ...... well, an Almightily Foolish Few would a very kind moniker for them?

There doesn’t appear to any shortage of them, though, and that tells you all you need to know about the current parlous disintegrating state of internetworking things and the likely worthy subjects/victims/object ripe ready for correction/extermination/investigation/universal exposure etc etc.