I got the attached and was wondering what thoughts were about this practice.
Hello,
This note is intended for U.S. citizens and is a personal note from
Stephen Northcutt. For the past few weeks CERT and SEI, DoD government
funded organizations, have been purchasing google adwords so that when
people search for “SANS Training” they see an advertisement for
CERT/SEI’s network manager course.
I have a couple of concerns about this. The first is trademark or brand
related, when you search for SANS training, you should get SANS
training. Other competing commercial training companies have also
engaged in this behavior and when I have written them and asked if this
how they want to be remembered by the security community, they have
discontinued this practice. I wrote cert@cert.org a couple weeks ago
and they continue this practice.
My second concern is that the government offering the course violates
the spirit and letter of OMB A 76. “Two of the key principles of
Circular A-76 has always been that “in the process of governing, the
Government should not compete with its citizens” and that “a commercial
activity is not a governmental function.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a076/comments/a76-289.pdf
The course:
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/products/courses/cert/infosec-net-mgrs.html
The funding:
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/about/about.html
http://www.cert.org/faq/cert_faq.html#A4
My third concern is the amount of tax we pay as citizens. The
government is in the process of authorizing about 481 billion dollars
for DoD spending. The Department of Defense clearly has too much money
if they can afford to create training that mirrors material widely
available from SANS, MISTI, CSI, Intense School and other training
organizations. I believe the money spent on CERT, SEI and the Office
of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and
Logistics should each be reduced by at least 10% immediately.
So I am asking for your help. If you agree with me please write your
congress person and either use this note as a base or write your own.
I would be honored if you would copy me, Stephen@sans.org. If you don’t
agree with me, or don’t want to help me, that is fine, but before you
send me a knee jerk email flame would you do three things. Look at your
last paycheck stub and remind yourself how much tax you pay, second,
consider the impact of the U.S. deficit
(http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ ) and finally think about how you
would feel if the government decided to compete in a disreputable manner
with a course that took you months to write, SANS Security Leadership.
After that, if you disagree with me, I would love to hear what you have
to say. So please help me and write your congressman and tell them your
home address, make sure they know you vote and you agree that the
government has no business wasting taxpayer money competing with a
course Stephen Northcutt does a better job of anyway.
To find your representative:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
To find your congressional representative, the best link I could find is:
http://www.senate.gov/
Thank you for taking the time to help! Needless to say, I write this
note as a private citizen and the author of SANS Security Leadership and
am certain this note does not reflect the collective views and opinions
of The SANS Institute.
Stephen Northcutt
Stephen@sans.org
(808) 823-1375
