Cyber-Security

I want to start a discussion on cyber security. Throughout the history of mankind there have been three revolutions – the agricultural revolution (when society grew from purely agrarian to rural and urban); the industrial revolution (when the steam engine amplified human strength); to the information revolution (when communications and computing extended the human brain and its interactions with its environment). I think it is safe to say that until very recently, computers didn’t do anything that humans couldn’t; they just did it faster (and didn’t get bored). We are just on the cusp of empowering computers to do things that our brains are not capable of doing either because of complexity or capacity. When we lose our ability to fall back on the brain (in case of an electric power failure) we are also exposing ourselves to the whims and taunts of computer miscreants (I think the term hacker has been transmogrified so seriously as to be meaningless at this point). So the quest ion emerges as to how we defend ourselves in these circumstances. Step one, and I apologize for being so blunt about it, is no excuse for such things as taking laptops home with tons of unprotected confidential data on it. There have to be both human and technological controls and standards which can not be breached – no way, no how. Then we have to try our best to design impregnable systems which can not be breached by even the smartest miscreant. Nice dream, but not practical. We can raise the bar, but they play by a different set of rules. It took several years to build the World Trade Center, but only about 15 minutes to reduce it to smoldering rubble. Unless we are going to encase all our computers in tungsten carbide and hide them behind twelve feet of lead – and connecting them to no networks, we will be in the same boat (sorry about the mixed metaphor). That suggest to me that where we have to head is to produce systems which can either heal themselves or have instincts (much like a dog) of what is going to be dangerous and avoid it up front. If you watch reruns of Star Trek (and I do), you can see what a system like that would look like, but getting from here to there is well beyond my cranial capacity, so I welcome any thoughts you (collectively) might have. We will all benefit.

David