Computer Attacks

The recent articles on cyber attacks are interesting in that many of these can be prevented and the whole issue has been analyzed for decades. The NY Times reports on some of the latest updates but I wonder why the big concern especially if one take a modicum of care.

Back in the 70s there were similar issues:

1. Red and Black: Secure rooms and un-secure were black and red. Namely one took some care to close the rooms down, secure them from snooping, have screens, bury them etc.

2. Carefully vet your people. The classic tale of the Falcon and the Snowman about the drugged up workers in the TRW vault in the 70s trying to sell the Soviets highly classified data in Mexico, is an example of what not to do. People are always the most insecure element. Today we share everything across the board, before we were quite circumspect.

3. The Internet is an open network. If you want to operate a secure network the DO NOT USE THE INTERNET. When I started my VOIP business in the mid 90s I had dedicated lines, it guaranteed levels of service and security. I owned all my routers and they were secure. I never thought otherwise.

4. Kernelized Operating Systems: Back in the 70s we worried about people getting into out OS environments so we developed kernelized security, and it seemed to work. Now we have more holes in any OS so that almost weekly we have security patches. That is amazing in that we had developed quite secure systems 40+ years ago. One wonders where Microsoft was.

The problem is simply allowing the wrong people to have access to open systems with poor security. Having the Government control it is the wrong approach. They controlled the old ATT network before divestiture. ATT even sat in the Pentagon, and this never really did anything useful

Thus the best way is a Coasian way, let the failure occur and then have the users sue the devil out of the fool company that allowed it to happen.