The Future of Security

Kvorgette writes "Scott Berinato in The Future of Security presents a very dark future of security in the years around 2010. Several computer security experts expect that a major security-related problem (a 'digital Pearl Harbour') will change software development procedures and remove the freedom in computer use we are striving for. The worst part is, most experts apparently think removal of software tools and access to information from the majority of computer and Internet users would be a good thing."

Comments

Mozilla is Dying

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official; Netcraft confirms: Mozilla is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Mozilla community when IDC confirmed that Mozilla market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all web browsers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Mozilla has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Mozilla is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Mozilla's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Mozilla faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Mozilla because Mozilla is dying. Things are looking very bad for Mozilla. As many of us are already aware, Mozilla continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Netscape 6 is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Netscape developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Mozilla is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Mozilla.org leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of Mozilla. How many users of Galeon are there? Let's see. The number of Mozilla versus Galeon posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Galeon users. Chimera posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Galeon posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Chimera. A recent article put Netscape 6 at about 80 percent of the Mozilla market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Netscape 6 users. This is consistent with the number of Netscape 6 usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Mozilla, abysmal sales and so on, Netscape went out of business and will probably be taken over by AOL who sell another troubled browser. Now AOL is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Mozilla has steadily declined in market share. Mozilla is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Mozilla is to survive at all it will be among browser dilettante dabblers. Mozilla continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Mozilla is dead.

Fact: Mozilla is dying

@stake security fools

[Krapangor]

However, as Dan Geer, former CTO of @Stake, notes, authentication can't possibly keep up with the number of people who need it and the number of transactions we try to control with it. Authentication doesn't scale.

But surveillance does. "The costs to observe are virtually zero, so it's not a question of will it exist, but what will we do with it?" Geer asks.

I sometimes wonder how clueless these "experts" can be. There seems to be no limit. The only logical consequence is that I, slashdot user Krapangor and well-known mensa member, declare myself to be the security overexpert of the world.

Death penalty for owing a compiler

[maKKus]

America!! Where owning a gun is a constitutional right but owning a compiler (soon) means a death penalty.
Land of the free!

Compiler == gun, headers == bullets

[macemoneta]

This is the same (faulty) logic that says that restricting guns stops crime.

Any criminal will, of course, simply ignore a law that prevents them from doing what they want to. That is after all the definition of a criminal -- someone that commits a crime (breaks the law).

The only thing that restricting access to any tool does, is stop those people you don't care about -- those that obey the law. Everyone really knows this, but this is really about control, not security or safety.

Project for a New American Internet

[vnv]

Just as the "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC) *needed* a "Pearl Harbor" to implement its police state plans, the forces that wish to shut down and control the information age need a "Digital Pearl Harbor" to implement their digital police state plans.

The phrasing "Digital Pearl Harbor" is used in a fashion very similar to how "Pearl Harbor" is used in the PNAC documents.

For further reading (also: google "PNAC pearl harbor")

Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush said what America needed was "a new Pearl Harbor". Its published aims have, alarmingly, come true. : John Pilger :12 Dec 2002

The cabal of war fanatics advising the White House secretly planned a "transformation" of defense policy years ago, calling for war against Iraq and huge increases in military spending. A "catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" -- was seen as necessary to bring this about.

March 10 -- Years before George W. Bush entered the White House, and years before the Sept. 11 attacks set the direction of his presidency, a group of influential neo-conservatives hatched a plan to get Saddam Hussein out of power. (...) And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."

So when events start leading up to "Digital Pearl Harbor" ... make sure you've got all the apps and source code you care about on local storage. Because everything that in any way possible could be utilized by a "digital terrorist" is going to be banned and taken off the net.