Distributed Security

A reader writes: ""Where Schneier had sought one overarching technical fix, hard experience had taught him the quest was illusory." A long and detailed article at The Atlantic Online on why Bruce Schneier has come down from his strong cryptography tower to preach the gospel of small scale, ductile security against the popular approach of broad scale, often high tech security that often proves to be very brittle."

Comments

Security is only useful when not distributed

[JanusFury]

If you're the only person who is secure, then you're the only one who's safe.

If everyone is secure, then nobody is safe, because someone will figure out a way around everyone's security.

'distributed security'... what an oxymoron. :)

Preventing future attacks

[t00tie]

I quote from the article: "It is now a year since the World Trade Center was destroyed. Legislators, the law-enforcement community, and the Bush Administration are embroiled in an essential debate over the measures necessary to prevent future attacks. "

The article goes on about technological measures of deterring terrorists.

I am disturbed by the US' lack of insight. It seems as if no-one has asked "why are there so many people out there who hate the US?". "What can the US do to prevent people from hating us so much that they're willing to fly a plane into a building?". The US (and the UK) are the main reasons the state of Israel exists today - the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is as atrocious as it is illegal. Many people blame the US. The US has killed over 800 innocent afghani civilians in their "war on terror". In my book thats just as bad as killing 800 american citizens. Or are all humans equal but american citizens are more equal than others?

In short: "homeland security" has focused on preventing the symptoms, and not the disease. As long as people hate the US enough to be willing to die to harm it, they will find ways to do so. And no amount of crypto or technology will prevent them! Wake up fools!

Before you mod me down: I wish no harm to the US but I _do_ understand that others do, and in part I sympathise with them in their plight.