>> so it's like a fraternity. you say i'm a member of the estonia hackers? >> estonia seems to be a hotbed right now, i think because of how the economy is run over there. >> anyone else? >> if i could add to that. >> sure. >> it's actually pretty interesting. this is a very large and very well-organized underground economy. they're specialized. so you have some people that rent tools. other people that rent access to botnets. you can tell them where you want the bots to be, where you want the computers. payment mechanisms between the parties. so it's very sophisticated. when you think from a criminal standpoint, it's a lot easier to get an investment return this way. and the scale is so much larger. these are folks that operate across borders, internationally. and there is just an enormous amount of economic incentive for them to do it. and unlike apt, this is

primarily an economic crime. apt is focused certainly on economics, but more on intellectual property or embarrassing companies. this is all about the money. >> well, i guess mr. mahon, is there a possibility we have terrorists involved with this that are part of this estonia, the terrorists could go to this group or this federation across and are using them? is that a possibility? >> absolutely. terrorists use these types of schemes for funding. number one, they need funding for their operations. and number two, they use it just as a communication system. they know they're being looked at. the ways they need to communicate are surreptitious lou. they use these technologies to communicate with one another. but they need to fund their operations. >> the basic question comes down. and that is probably the premise or understanding what the hearing is all about. what could we as legislators on this subcommittee or the full committee or members of congress, what can we do to make

it easier for you to operate and at the same time, give you the wherewithal to compete? and what should we not do? what should we do and what should we not do. as a closing statement, mr. livingood, if we could go down the panel and give what we should do and what we should not do that, would be helpful for one legislator. >> sure, of course. what you should do is help make information sharing easier. remove those impediments. i think there is a goal for government to play in education to raise awareness about security issues. and i think there are r&d types of things through agencies that you can help fund to focus on this. i think what you should not do is focus on mandates and compliance. that enables us to focus instead of innovation. >> wow, that sounded good. i would exactly repeat those comments. i'll add one additional, and

that's that you do have influence around the federal procurement process. a lot of times we see procurements come out and scratch our heads. boy, don't you think there ought to be -- like through gsa there is this m-tips. a lot of us are m-tips vendors. there ought to be more business there isn't. so i would recommend that that procurement process ought to be the most secure process in the entire world. >> i would echo what both of them said, and just add the importance of information sharing. we have limited resources. we conduct risk assessments. that risk assessments when we're trying to decide on impacts and probability of events is based upon the information we have at the time. if a government agency or another carrier has additional information, we don't factor that into our analysis, we're really misaligning our resources in how we develop our counter measures. >> i think there is a lot of commonality among the panel here on what we would like to see.

i think just to add a little bit to the information sharing area, i think the federal government has access to information through various agencies that are watching the country's cyberborders. and we've seen in our own company the vast majority of reconnaissance scans and attempts to gain access are coming from china and eastern europe. and i think the federal government would be in a good position to monitor and provide more information on that. >> i'm sorry. going last, i get to say i agree with everybody else on the panel here, especially i want to hammer out that information sharing from government to industry. the purview that intelligence agencies have and that you have at a state level in terms of what you see is much different than what we see. so my team works with dr. amoroso's team on areas of commonality between rim and at&t where we think we have issues that need to be addressed that impact the security of our customers, but we don't necessarily get that feedback

from the government about what do you see that we need to be aware of. and if there is anything i could ask for, it's a more transparent, more realtime information sharing mechanism to let industry know what government knows so that we can act to protect our networks and by extension protect your information. >> thank you. mr. gingrey, thanks for your patience. as we have gone through the hearing, you're the last. >> mr. chairman, you took the words right out of my mouth. exacting the last measure of patience out of the last member to ask a question. i moved down here early in the hearing because i couldn't hear very well, even though the chairman said speak right into your microphones. but i'm glad i did move down close because i knew it was going to be interesting. i knew that all five of you experts were going to have a lot of useful information to present to us. and quite honestly, afteri i'm figure out a way to beat these

guys. and the only thing i can think of is an opportunity to invest in these hacking operations. i don't guess that would be legal. but if it were, i think that would probably be one of the best ways to -- for us to win. but thank you all very much. let me ask a couple of specific questions. and maybe this cuts a little bit to the chase of one of the main reasons why the chairman is holding this hearing. and each one of you, please, starting with mr. livingood answer this for me please. do you believe the fcc has enough cybersecurity expertise to allay the concerns that some industry stakeholders have with the commission if they do choose to impose cybersecurity regulations on you guys, on the network providers. do you think you have enough confidence in their expertise to do that? mr. livingood? >> so i don't know the answer to

that. we work with a lot of folks at the fcc and enjoy doing that. they have a lot of expertise. whether they have enough here, i think that's a tough question. i don't know the answer. >> i've said earlier, i don't think there is any agency that has the right expertise to do that. if we knew what the answer was, we would be doing that. i don't think it's a knock on any one particular agency. i just don't think there is any agency that has that capability right now. >> mr. mullen? >> and i would agree with ed. the answer is no, but i don't think anyone does. and i think that is the importance of collaborative relationships. you do need to bring people in from all sorts of the federal arena, as well as the private industry arena to work together, do the evolving nature of the threats in this arena. >> mr. olsen? >> it's an important question, but i would have to agree with mr. livingood. i don't know whether they do or not. >> i don't know either. i think what you're hearing here

and common amongst the panel is the defender job, the job we're trying to do to protect your information is exceptionally hard. much harder than being on the other side. >> speaking of hedge funds. let me go back to mr. olsen and your formal testimony that you gave. you talked about the clearing house. i would like to know a little bit more about that specifically. and do you think that would be helpful? and maybe you could elaborate a little bit more on that. >> yeah. i think there is really two aspects to that. one is where the federal government is sharing with private sector, with industry, what they're seeing as far as threats. i mentioned a little while ago about threats from outside the u.s. i think that's a critical component. the other is where companies could share -- private companies could share information on threats that they're seeing. and that clearing house would have to be sponsored by somebody, and i think the federal government is really the right place to do that. >> and i think you address also in your testimony the whole

harmless profession that would be necessary. >> absolutely. >> to share that information. so that you wouldn't be subject to lawsuits and that sort of thing. >> yes, sir. >> i've got a little time left. let me have one more question then. the internet is currently transitioning from this internet provider v-4 to v-6 addressing. does that process create any new cybersecurity issues, and will transitioning alone solve any cybersecurity issues that currently exist? does the process of transitioning present opportunities to resolve existing cybersecurity issues? we'll start with mr. livingood and go right through. >> sure. we've been a leader on ipv-6. all of those issues that exist in the current internet and ipv-4 simply carry over to ipv-6. it's just a new form of addressing. that being said, because it's a

new form of dressing and a new technology, you're introducing new things into the ecosystem. to the point earlier, it's a complex ecosystem. when you change something, it can have unintended consequences. it's something you have to keep an eye on and make sure you're not introducing any new vulnerabilities. is there were any, it's because some security tool that worked great in ipv-4. >> would be routable. and that's a pretty dangerous situation. so for all of us, we've got to figure out how to architect security protections around that. so i do -- i do have some concerns about the v-6 transition. >> mr. mullen? >> the architect and engineering teams are still working through those. as they've said, you have legacy systems being married up with new evolving technology. whenever you do that, you're

going to have things evolve as you begin to deploy it. >> mr. olsen? >> i think from a protection standpoint, it's a step ahead. but the bad guys are out there working as hard as we are to find a way around that. as soon as we make an advancement in technology, they're out there keeping pace with us. >> it expands the attack surface, and by doing so, it increases the risks. we have new and unknown risks that we're going to have to learn how to mitigate. >> mr. chairman, thank you for the generosity of the 45 extra seconds. and i yield back. >> actually, you got clear to 49. glad to help. thank you, mr. gingrey for staying and participating. i want to thank all of our witnesses and all the folks behind them who i'm sure played some role. but we really appreciate your insights. it's very helpful in our effort. obviously we're trying to do the right thing. you're out there fighting the battle every day, and we don't want to get in your way. we may be back to you with our working group, digging a little deeper on some of the issues and

getting as specific as possible. we hope to look out too at some of the other types of networks and small providers. you obviously represent the major providers or a wondering about the m. weakest link, which might, might be small isps, and how do they deal with this, and do they have the same sorts of capabilities to fight back. and so anyway, i deeply appreciate your willingness to be here today. and share your knowledge with us. we're better for it. so with that, the subcommittee on communications and technology stands adjourned.

coming up here on c-span 3, a senate hearing on the situation in syria. then military officials discuss options for dealing with iran. and later, cia director david petraeus nasa charles boldin discuss nasa security and the future of their departments. on "washington journal" tomorrow morning, we'll focus on u.s. options in syria with former undersecretary of state for arms control ellen tauscher. the president of ave maria university, jim towey will discuss the proposal for insurance coverage of birth control. and you can call in with your questions about u.s. international trade to steve landefeld, and ryan avent, a

correspondent with the economist. washington journal is live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> senate foreign relations chairman john kerry said thursday that the violent crackdown by bashar assad's regime in syria should not be tolerated, but the world must respond in a, quote, responsible way. and he said there are stark differences between the situation in syria and in moammar gadhafi's libya, where the u.s. and other where other countries intervened. where the escalating violence in syria where an estimated 7500 people have been killed since the start of anti-government protests a year ago. this is 1:40. >> i will have to do that. we appreciate everybody coming here to discuss the ongoing situation in syria. as we all know, syria sits in

the heart of the middle east. straddling its ethnic and sectarian fault lines. all of the region's important and direct powers have a direct interest in what happens in syria, as do non-state actors like hezbollah and hamas and others. al qaeda through its affiliate in iraq appears to be trying to take advantage of the unrest, chaos if you want to call it that, which is no surprise. already as many as 9,000 civilians have died. many tens of thousands more have been displaced from their homes. in the syrian city of homs, there has been indiscriminate shelling for three weeks now. hundreds have died, and the city is running critically low on food and medical supplies. given the indiscriminate killing

of its own citizens and given its back of the hand to the global community as well as to the regional powers that have tried to intervene, it seems clear that the assad regime is ultimately going to fall. but the longer the end game, the messier the aftermath and obviously the more complicated the in between. the prospect of a full fledged sectarian civil war is a stark reminder that a terrible situation could become still much worse, with potentially devastating consequences for neighbors, israel, lebanon, jordan, and adverse implications for the broader middle east. so the question being asked here in the congress as well as elsewhere in america and in the world is where do we go from here? america may have little direct leverage on syria, but the

recent friends of syria conference in tunis was an important moment that could galvanize the international community against the assad government. none of us should underestimate the ability of the global community to have an impact on a renegade regime anywhere in the world when the full attention and focus of the global community is properly convened. the last year has shown that when the world acts with one voice, motivated by the cause of freedom, a tyrant's grip on power doesn't seem so fierce. that is why the russian and chinese veto at the united nations security council was so disappointing, because it actually extended to assad a political lifeline to continue to use violence against his own people. we need to encourage the russians and the chinese and certainly let them know that, while we would like their

positive involvement in putting a halt to the conflict, we are able to do and prepared to do much more if they continue to block all progress at the security council. the arab league and gcc have ramped up their political and economic pressure. the eu and turkey -- turkey, interestingly enough, just a year ago, a close friend and supporter of syria, have broken and done the same. the un general assembly in recent weeks voted 137-12 to condemn the crackdown. two weeks ago, the senate passed unanimously a resolution introduced by this committee, condemning the regime for its brutal crackdown and expressing solidarity with the syrian people. there are still serious questions about various opposition organizations, including especially the syrian national council and free syrian

army. they share the goal of getting rid of assad and they've done -- they have traveled some distance in the course of the last year. but they have not yet unified in the way that the libyan transitional national council did. so i believe it's time for us to redouble our efforts to engage with syria's political opposition to try to shape their thinking, to understand it more fully, to identify more fully the leadership, to strongly encourage them to coalesce into a coherent political force. with the creation of the friends of syria group, there is now a multi-lateral mechanism for supporting the syrian national council and other political groups with technical assistance. but it is true that many syrians themselves remain on the fence, especially members of the alawite christian and other minority groups. they are horrified by the

regime's atrocities, but also terrified by the potential for broad scale sectarian strife. thus it is absolutely vital that the snc do everything it can to unify politically to put national aspirations ahead of personal ambitions, to categorically reject radicalism and reassure religious and ethnic minorities that they will enjoy full freedoms in a tolerant and pluralist post assad society. the syrian opposition needs to understand that the international community's political support will ultimately be contingent upon their ability to speak with one voice that represents the full diversity of syrian society and also embraces the values that will bring the global community to its side. a debate has started in congress and in the region about whether and if so how to support the free syrian army. it is critical that we all

proceed with extreme caution and with our eyes wide open. there are serious questions to be answered about the free syrian army, but it is not too soon to think about how the international community could shape its thinking or encourage restraint. we should encourage the free syrian army to subsume itself under the leadership of syria's political opposition. finally, we are all deeply concerned about the disposition of syria's biological and chemical weapons and its lethal conventional weapons systems. i know the administration is fully engaged with respect to this particular challenge, and are working diligently to make sure there are contingencies to prevent these weapons from falling into the right hands. i would urge all of my colleagues to be fully supportive of those efforts. to help us work through the complexities of this situation -- and i want to emphasize this is not libya, this is not egypt, this is not

tunis, this is a far more complicated and difficult proposition. but to help us work through those complexities today, we are joined by two of the most talented and accomplished members of america's diplomatic corps. i'm pleased to welcome assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs jeff feltman, and former u.s. ambassador of syria robert ford. i should say ambassador, but not currently in country. secretary feltman knows the region well, and having served as ambassador to lebanon, i think he understands as well as anybody the full implications this crisis could have. ambassador ford has worked tirelessly to engage with the people of syria during his tenure. ambassador, we want to all commend you on your courageous and important efforts that you made to distinguish between the clientitis that can sometimes embrace those abroad and your

own connection to the values you represented. i think we all were very impressed by that. ambassador ford had to leave the country once in october because of threats to his own safety, but he returned and continued his efforts until the embassy finally had to close last month because of the continued deterioration in security. so we thank you both in advance for providing your insights, and look forward to your testimony. senator lugar? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i join you in welcoming assistant secretary feldman and ambassador ford to this committee. . we do appreciate their leadership as events in syria have proceeded. ambassador ford and his team on the ground in syria were especially courageous and they deserve great credit for documenting evidence of the syrian government's aggression against its people despite substantial personal risks to themselves.

our hearing today takes place amidst the deadly violence, the gross human rights violations and degradations that the assad regime continues to inflict on the syrian people. since our last hearing on syria in november, the death toll in this 11-month conflict has risen dramatically. we're confronted by horrific images of the depths to which the depths assad would go to preserve his power, including targeting civilians, journalists, doctors, workers, women and children. i welcomed a meeting in tunis last week of the friends of the syrian people that brought together 60 nations and international organizations. we should continue to focus attention on humanitarian needs in syria. the absence of russia and china from the meeting was an abrogation of their responsibilities in my judgment as permanent members of the united nations security council.

events in syria will impact united states national security and the interests of our close ally, israel. the outcome in syria will have deep implications for the internal politician of neighboring countries, ethnic conflicts in the middle east and broader strategic issues. terrorist groups are likely to attempt to take advantage of political instability and inner sectarian violence could spill over syria's borders as groups settle old scores or defend brethren from attacks. in the midst of this upheaval, we know syria has substantial stockpiles of chemical and conventional weapons that could directly threaten peace and stability throughout the region. our government should be focusing intelligence and counter proliferation assets on containing this threat. the development of a definable

opposition that speaks for most syrians would improve chances that the damage to the syrian people and risk to regional stability can be contained. some constructive opposition voices are attempting to emerge. but at present, the syrian opposition lacks cohesion and a sufficiently defined political agenda. as a practical matter, it also lacks the physical space and technical means to mature, to over come its internal differences, and to develop a plan for democratic transition. deep sectarian divisions, outside influences from iran and elsewhere and the lack of a democratic political culture weigh heavily against the short-term emergence of unified opposition on which to base a tolerant democracy. this presents the united states with very limited options. clearly we must oppose the assad regime's aggression

against its own people and support international humanitarian efforts. we should work to limit any spillover effect generated by violence in syria. but we should not overestimate our influence to shape events in the country at this point. further attempts by the united states or the west to closely manage the opposition could backfire in an environment where the government blames outside influences for syria's troubles. while not taking any options off the table, we should be extremely skeptical about actions that could commit the united states to a military intervention in syria. under the constitution, any decision placing us as a party to armed conflict in syria rests with the congress. as you and others in the administration consider a way for ward together with our international partners, i encourage you to work closely with congress as plans evolve, particularly as the situation becomes more complex.

i look forward to your testimony very much, and we are honored that you're with us today. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lugar. mr. secretary, if you would lead off and then ambassador ford. thank you very much. your full testimony will be placed in the record. >> thank you, mr. chairman. chairman kerry, ranking member lugar, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for holding this important hearing. i appeared before your regional subcommittee in november to discuss the crisis in syria. since that time, our european friends have joined us in sanctioning the central bank of syria, impeding the financing of the regime's brutal crackdown. the eu has completed its implementation of its embargo on oil purchases from syria, halting a third of bashar's government revenues. the arab league suspended the

membership with many states downgrading relations and freezing bank accounts. the arab league put forth a political transition plan for syria. over 137 countries supported the un general assembly resolution condemning the syrian regime's violence and supporting the arab league transition plan. more than 60 countries and institutions met in tunis as friends of the syrian people to endorse the arab transition plan, to demand an immediate end to the violence, and to commit to practical steps to address the syrian crisis. the syrian opposition in tunis articulated a clear, credible transition plan and addressed minority fears directly and convincingly. we announced $10 million in immediate humanitarian assistance with millions more from other countries. the un, the arab league have appointed a joint high profile envoy kofi annan with a