Cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke will step down next month after he finishes a comprehensive Internet-security plan, industry and government sources said Tuesday. Clarke, a longtime White House aide who has led efforts to combat terrorism and bolster the security of the nation's computer systems. . .

Cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke will step down next month after he finishes a comprehensive Internet-security plan, industry and government sources said Tuesday. Clarke, a longtime White House aide who has led efforts to combat terrorism and bolster the security of the nation's computer systems, will look for work in the private sector rather than take a position in the new Department of Homeland Security, people close to the situation said.

Sources suggested that Clarke was unsatisfied with the new positions offered him, as they would be a step down from his current role as national point man for cybersecurity efforts.

A spokesman with Clarke's office declined to comment.

Clarke will announce his resignation after presenting the final version of the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, a wide-ranging document that seeks to encourage "safe computing" practices among business, government and individual users, the sources said.

The product of more than a year of discussion with a wide range of experts, the report has been the subject of intense lobbying by privacy advocates worried about online surveillance and businesses who fear excessive regulation.

Security experts, meanwhile, have criticized the plan as toothless because it imposes few hard rules on users who operate in an online environment still rife with security holes.

Cybersecurity concerns have mounted in the face of devastating attacks such as last weekend's "SQL Slammer" virus, which knocked out wide swaths of the Internet, forcing Korean stock brokers to trade with paper and pencil, and shutting down many automatic teller machines in the United States.

Critics say the state of online security will remain dismal as long as businesses do not make it a priority. At the same time, Clarke and others on the President's Critical Infrastructure Board say the government cannot browbeat the industry into compliance because 85 percent of the Internet is privately owned.

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