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GCN Home > October 25, 1999 issue

FIDnet will monitor federal, not private, nets, administration says

By Christopher J. Dorobek
GCN Staff

Under continued skepticism from privacy groups, the Clinton administration has reiterated that the new Federal Intrusion Detection Network will monitor only government computer networks and not those in the private sector.

House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas), however, has asked why private networks were included in draft plans for FIDnet. Privacy advocates raised concerns about FIDnet because draft proposals said the network would also review private networks.

Administration officials, however, said the network is designed for federal systems. “As envisioned, FIDnet is being designed to monitor federal executive branch computer networks for intrusions, not private networks or the Internet in general,” said Jon P. Jennings, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs.

FIDnet is intended as a network of automated sensors placed at entry points to critical government agency networks. Those agency-owned-and-operated sensors would look for suspicious patterns and issue alerts based on predefined criteria, Jennings said in a letter to Armey.

It’s like DOD’s

Richard A. Clarke, a special assistant to the president and national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection and counterterrorism at the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, also defended FIDnet as a defensive network for federal computers, similar to the Defense Department’s intrusion detection network, the Joint Task Force for Computer Network Defense.

“There are those who have said that the Federal Intrusion Detection Network is a Big Brother plan to intrude into the private lives of citizens,” Clarke said, and that the FBI will run FIDnet. “None of that is true,” he said in a speech at the recent Industry Advisory Council’s Executive Leadership Conference in Richmond, Va.

FIDnet will be run by the General Services Administration and will be a link of existing and new intrusion detection monitors, he said.

Just the facts

Jennings said the FBI will not be a primary recipient of FIDnet information, although the FBI would become involved with intrusions that require analysis by the National Infrastructure Protection Center’s Analysis and Warning Section, or if there was a need for further investigation or eventual prosecution.

Federal systems are a favorite target of hackers, Jennings said, and it is important to protect government data because of its confidentiality.



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