http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/06/15/pentagon-cyber-command-cyber-war/

Foxnews is not my normal source of IT related news, but this was an interesting article nonetheless. It reminded me of a session I sat in on of Ed Skoudis' titled "The Bad Guys Are Winning, So Now What?!" in Orlando last year at SANS 2009.

I'm curious to see on what side of the aisle everyone sits here. Should the gov't/military be involved in defense of private networks?

In my opinion, yes. However, there should be an opt-in. It shouldn't be something forced upon enterprises.

I personally think "No" the Govt/Military should have NOTHING to do with protecting "private networks". Once any level of control is handed over to the Gov. it becomes a political front. If you hand it over to the Military it can be used either against us, against someone else, or withheld from us. Could you imagine a situation similar to Egypt, where all communication is shut off by the Gov. to "protect it's citizens"? In most cases private companies, ISPs etc etc have more money available to provide full spectrum protection than the Govt. Another side effect of having the Gov/Military protect these networks would be an increase in your tax dollars to support the initiative. I agree that more should be done on the side of protection of these infrastructures, including power grids, nuclear power plants, public water, telephone, fiber optic etc, but I dont think it should belong in the Govt/Military domain.