December 7, 2010 — 5:55pm ET | By Molly Bernhart Walker
Cyber Czar Howard Schmidt said four guiding principals lie behind White House Internet policymaking: Deterrence, resilience, privacy and partnerships. Schmidt spoke Dec. 6 at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution, in Washington, D.C.
While cyber deterrence is often thought of in a cold war-sense of "mutually assured disruption," Schmidt said he thinks of it as simply holding people accountable--catching and prosecuting cybercriminals, and handing down severe sentences.
Privacy is not simply protecting and securing technology, he added. The concept of privacy must evolve to a point that the information necessary for an online transaction is minimized and available for the shortest amount of time to validate the transaction and then vanish.
Those four principles, in turn, guide three goals, Schmidt said, the most important of which is protected government networks. It's a goal, he said, which can only be met with the full support of the private sector, which maintains much of the infrastructure on which government depends.
Schmidt said his second goal for cyber policy is a focus on education, training and workforce development. "This is not an issue of 'What's it going to look like two years down the road?'" said Schmidt. Rather, building toward the future means looking 20 years out and predicting needs, resiliency requirements and the innovative technologies that will one day be in place.
Finally, cyber policy should strengthen law enforcement, intelligence and diplomatic efforts, he said. "Progress in the international realm is not standing at opposite ends of the room and yelling at each other," said Schmidt. The goal is to openly consider adversarial relationships, economic competition and, in spite of these factors, find a way to ensure that there are no safe harbors for cybercriminals.