[161464] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: WW: Bruce Schneier on why security can't work
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Fri Mar 15 09:56:50 2013
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAAAwwbV8P1LQK0nHO_8rY3NcjO04vbZUGWcPWDddopET842z7Q@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 06:53:24 -0700
To: Jimmy Hess <mysidia@gmail.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
> And there you have it :)
>=20
> Security obviously works thus far, in the sense, that so far,
> government has been preserved -- there is not total chaos, in at least
> most of the world, and people do not doubt if their life or property
> will still exist the next day.
>=20
I'm not sure I would even put "government has been preserved" on the =
list of considerations for the success or failure of security.
I would put "law and order", "governance and/or the process of =
governance" on the list, but especially in a post-911 world, the US =
Government has departed from those ideals to varying degrees.
Do not get me wrong, I am not advocating radical revolution or saying =
that we should tear down the existing institutions. Merely that we =
should be careful in our default use of terminology and focus on what we =
really want to preserve. Ideally, we can restore the US government to =
its proper (and limited) function. (That does not mean eliminating =
government services and making it small enough to fit in our bedrooms, =
either.)
I'm not supporting any of the current Washington agendas and parties. =
I'm fed up with all of them at this point and unless they start working =
on solving problems instead of posturing all the time, I won't be =
supporting ANY incumbents.
> Abusing new technology faster doesn't trump the extreme smallness of
> the numbers of truly bad actors, who have irrational thinking, would
> like to end civilization, and the intersection between those and
> those who have a viable method that would work + the right
> resources/skill available, and a reasonable chance of success....
> astronomically small
The bottom line is that any system of laws and/or governance depends =
entirely on voluntary compliance by the majority of the actors.=20
> If in a few decades, there is a 0.1% chance per decade of a
> script kiddie ending civilization, I think we've got few reasonable
> alternatives but to accept that risk and hope for the best :)
On the other hand, I will hold up the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act and the =
T.S.A. as proof that we are rather adept at exploring and sometimes =
acting on the unreasonable alternatives.
Owen
