Opinion: In Thursday’s Letters to the Editor
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In Thursday’s letters, more musings on Sarah Palin; on columnist Tim Rutten’s take on California’s anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8; and on Steve Lopez’ column about fighting his sister’s cancer (and what it can teach all of us about the American health care system.)
And hackers, Uncle Sam Wants You: James F. Carter, a senior programmer in UCLA’s mathematics department, thinks that the Armed Forces’ plans for a National Military Strategy for Cyberspace Operations may put too much emphasis on offense maneuvers and too little on defending our country’s networks. He writes:
Prudent system administrators assume that all traffic is monitored by undergraduate pranksters, Al Qaeda agents and the Justice Department ...If an army, navy, or air force fails to use...encryption software for mission-related conmunication of any kind, it is incompetent. We should not expect or rely on our enemies to remain vulnerable.
*Classic 1941 poster by James Montgomery Flagg. Photographer unknown.