Why Has NASA Banned Access to its Partner Saudi Arabia?, SpaceRef
“Last week NASA Administrator Bolden announced that access to NASA computer networks and facilities would be curtailed for citizens of various countries. Among the countries listed was Saudi Arabia. It is more than a little unusual to see Saudi Arabia targeted like this given the strong relations between the Saudis and the U.S. in a wide range of scientific and technological fields. It is even more odd that NASA would publicly snub a major U.S. ally in the Middle East in the midst of a presidential trip to the region. … Right now there is a contingent of NASA JPL employees in Saudi Arabia discussing space-related issues. …. It will be rather awkward for the former Caltech president, now in the same position at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, to have to explain to his Saudi staff and students why JPL (located at Caltech) won’t let them have access any more.”
But the issue at hand was security regarding technical information – not human rights or religion. To be certain, China, Iran, and North Korea are bad actors when it comes to transfer of sensitive information, human rights, etc. But it is rather hard to find instances where citizens of Burma, Eritrea, Sudan, Uzbekistan or Saudi Arabia have been accused of hacking into NASA computers or stealing sensitive information. So why does the list of nationalities banned from NASA by Bolden look more like a list of counties associated with human rights and religious discrimination than a list of countries known to seek out U.S. technology? Who gave who gave Bolden this list of countries to ban? Did he think it up himself or did Rep. Wolf give it to him?
Who are the top hacker countries in the world?, geopolitech.tumblr.com
“Despite all the bad press China is getting for its recent hacking activity, the US remains firmly on top in terms of sheer volume. This remains true for rankings tabulated by different think-tanks like Symantec and NCCGroup. Usual suspects China and Russia are consistently within the top five, while Germany and the UK show up consistently within the top ten.”
I have the general impression that a lot of the Saudi cyberstructure is programmed and maintained by foreign workers from across the mid-east and europe. I don’t worry about the Saudis per se having read access rights to NASA’s scientific systems but what I do worry about is letting their systems link via the internet to NASA’s systems. The Saudis have recently had a vicious hack attack that destroyed thousands of their PCs. Iran was suspected.
Finally, how are we going to demand that the Saudis only use certified loyal Saudi citizens to operate, program and use their computers when NASA partners in the US may not be doing the same concerning American citizens? Now that could be just a little bit hypocritical of us I would say.
…and noticing I can’t access my webmail from the UK…ummm…
Normally if information is classified or proprietary, the organization with the information does not permit anyone to access it unless they have an official need for it. NASA and ITAR are unusual in that they produce information that can be released to anyone, except people from specific counties. This gives the appearance of discrimination by national origin while providing little real security.
IMO information should be either restricted (Classified, Confidential, or Proprietary) or unrestricted. Information produced under a Space Act Agreement, for example, can be proprietary. If information is restricted, every document is clearly marked as such and no one has access without official permission, and those with access are instructed not to give it to anyone else.
One of the alternatives that Keith wonders about in the SpaceRef article is: “Did Rep. Wolf specifically ask Bolden to do this?“. The word “ask” still leaves two possibilities — Bolden was asked by Wolf to include SA and he did so, or Bolden was ordered by Wolf to include SA. Does a US Congressman have the legal authority to order such an action? I’m wondering if Bolden was following orders or if maybe this is Bolden trying to feed Wolf rope with which to hang himself? If enough senior people did that then maybe Rep. Wolf could be restrained from further embarrassing and alienating the US. Something I haven’t been able to find out: Who, if anyone, has the power to shut down a Congressperson?
“Does a US Congressman have the legal authority to order such an action? ” Not according to the Constitution, however Wolf as Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman can insert any language he wants into any continuing resolution and all the Republicans on the subcommittee will back him up, This could be seen as extortion, since Wolf is using the threat of slashing the budget, as he did at OSTP, to get his way.
“Who, if anyone, has the power to shut down a Congressperson?”
1. The voters of the Virginia 10th district could vote him out of office, however it is heavily Republican and has no space-related industry.
2. The voters of the rest of the country can overturn the Republican majority in the House, which would give the chairmanship to the ranking Democrat.
3. The Republican Party leadership could remove Wolf’s chairmanship if enough business interests lobbied them to do so. The Republican governor of Virginia, who is struggling to promote his state’s exports in China, might assist in this if a few Chinese companies called the Virginia Trade Office in Shanghai to complain.
Wrong, Frank Wolf has been reelected every 2 years since 1980, but Obama won here in 2008 and 2012. So it is not a heavily Republican district. And there sure is space industry and employees here; Orbital’s headquarters is in Dulles, VA. Wolf is fiercely partisan – kinda like the rest of Congress. I don’t like him either, but trust me, he’s going out in a casket as his power and fundraising prowess scare away good opposition.
I was referring to the Virginia 10th Congressional District, (Front Royal/Manassas/Winchester) not the state of Virginia as a whole.
Attacks from some countries may not actually be from people in those countries. This isn’t the best way to prevent something like that but it does have some effectiveness.