The ballad of Richard Clarke, Part 2

Two months ago, I sat at a breakfast during the Gartner IT Security Summit in Washington D.C., listening as former White House cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke described a bleak future in which the bad guys are able to knock out battlefield technology using computers from the comfort of their favorite remote location.

Clarke was telling the same story Tuesday at Black Hat in Las Vegas. Of course, he’s been making the rounds of late to promote his new book, “Breakpoint,” in which hackers of the future break into systems and start degrading the backbone of the Internet. In one scene, soldiers wearing technologically advanced exoskeletons are rendered frozen on the battlefield as the bad guys exploit security weaknesses in the technology.

But there was something different this time. Unlike the last presentation I witnessed, Clarke lashed out much more fiercely against the Bush Administration, criticizing what he described as dangerous cuts in cybersecurity spending and the President’s opposition to ways that could enhance human evolution like stem cell research.

If Bush’s cybersecurity policies (or the lack thereof) aren’t reversed by the next occupant of the White House, Clarke warned, scenes like the battlefield freeze-up in “Breakpoint” could someday become reality.

One of Clarke’s biggest claims to fame was “Against All Enemies,” the book he wrote about his falling out with Bush over security differences.

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