Category: "Security Policies"
About the Security Policies category
This category contains articles that discuss security policy issues, both at the corporate level and at the national and international levels. This domain contains security guidelines and procedures, as well as national policy considerations addressing national security, privacy, and more.
2014-09-23
A gift from Snowden to the European economy
The revelations made by Edward Snowden did not show us anything that we never thought possible. It did reveal, however, that many of the things that were possible in theory found their way to reality. Those revelations also gave opportunity for many of the chronic paranoids and conspiracy-theorists to say “I told you". Fact is, digital life causes us to rely on more and more service providers, in the shape of government agencies and private organizations, and those providers were now caught violating our trust. When we buy products and services, we trust their provider to follow the norms we believe it follows. When such trust breaks, we need to think what next. In my opinion, this situation forms an opportunity for Europe to catch up.
2014-08-19
Protecting network neutrality: both important and hard
The term “network neutrality” is mentioned very often lately; also in the context of FCC ruling, such as here, and here. Since the definition of net neutrality is not always clear, this topic is not subject to as much public debate as it probably should. Here is my take of what network neutrality is, and why it is difficult to regulate and enforce. I will start with my proposed technical and service-related definition of “network neutrality", and will follow with a brief explanation of why this is both difficult and important.
2014-04-03
Bitcoin does not provide anonymity
Categories: Security Engineering, Security Policies, Security, Counter-media
When people discuss Bitcoin, one of its properties that is often considered is its presumable anonymity. In this respect, it is often compared to cash. However, it shall be recognized and understood that Bitcoin is not as anonymous as cash; far from it, actually. Its anonymity relies on the concept of pseudonyms, which delivers some (unjustified) sense of anonymity, but very weak anonymity in practice.
2013-12-28
Book review: Little Brother
I have just finished reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. This book presents the story of a typical but tech savvy teenager who falls victim to harassment by the Department of Homeland Security and the police state, where every citizen is constantly tracked and monitored as a potential terrorist. The story is fictitious, of course, but those who follow the reaction of some nations to the terrorism threat and the ever increasing amplitude and sophistication of wholesale surveillance, cannot miss that while the story is factually fictitious, it is not at all implausible.
2013-09-13
Protecting private data: with law or with technology?
There is an ongoing debate on the need for new regulations that protect individuals’ personal data. Regulation is said to be required to protect the personal data of citizens, consumers, patients, etc., both against corporate service providers as well as against governments.
There is a growing concern about the implications of the data collection habits of social network operators, such as Facebook, as well as other service providers. Even those individuals who claim to not see any tangible risk behind the massive collection of data on themselves by service providers, still feel unease with the amount of data available on them, and on which they have no control.
On the state side, knowing that your government may monitor every single email and phone call reminds of George Orwell’s book “nineteen eighty-four". It is largely agreed that this practice, if not outright eliminated, shall at least be better controlled.
This essay discusses the two possible domains for such better control: technology and regulation, arguing that the former is tremendously more effective than the latter.
2013-07-06
The difference between Cyber Security and just Security
Categories: IT Security, Security Policies, Cyber Security, Counter-media
The concept of “Cyber Security” is surely the attention grabber of the year. All security products and services enjoy a boost in their perception of importance, and sales, by merely prepending the word “cyber” to their description. But how is cyber security different than just security?
It differs, but it is not an entirely different domain, at least not from the technology perspective.
Security protects against malicious attacks. Attacks involve an attacker, an attack target, and the attack method, which exploits one or more vulnerabilities in the target. When speaking of cyber attacks, it is common to refer to a nation state attacking another, or to an organization attacking a state. Referring to unorganized individual hackers as executing “cyber attacks", while being a common trend, is a blunt misuse of the “cyber” term in its common meaning. And still, cyber security is not as dramatically different than traditional security.
2012-03-08
Against the collection of private data: The unknown risk factor
I bet there are thousands of blog posts advocating privacy and explaining why people should resist governments and companies collecting personal data. I dare to write yet another one because I would like to make a couple of points that I have never seen made before. This post will discuss one of these two points: the unknown risk.
License
All contents licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license.