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Why Privacy & Security Are Not a Zero-Sum Game
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Ars Technica has up a nice article on why security consultant Ed Giorgio's statement that 'privacy and security are a zero-sum game' is wrong. The author reasons that, due to Metcalfe's law, the more valuable a government network is to the good guys, the more valuable it is to the bad guys. Given the trend in government to gather all of its eggs into one database, unless more attention is paid to privacy, we'll end up with neither security nor privacy. In other words, privacy and security are a positive-sum game with precarious trade-offs — you can trade a lot of privacy away for absolutely no gain in security, but you don't have to."
he's right ... but the thing is, the Federal Government isn't doing this to provide us with more security, they're doing it to provide themselves with more power, power over us. Consequently, they don't much care about our privacy, and there's no reasoning with them on that score.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
As any politician will tell you "the less you know the more secure you are".
Happiness is a zero sum game.
I think this is the article cited in the summary.
That's exactly why I submitted this.
People ought to know that the argument in favor of security at the expense of privacy is bogus, but they won't unless someone speaks up. Sometimes the 'obvious' things need to be drilled into people's heads, or they'll accept the simple but wrong excuses they're offered.
But... that's not the point now.
The current system of more and more data collecting isn't for more security. That's just how it's sold. It is, bluntly, control. Over your data and you. It is easier to pinpoint and neutralize "troublemakers" before they start gaining a lot of support.
So I guess this very interesting point will go unheard. The ones that implement the system don't care (actually, they want it to be that way), the masses don't know (or think that zero-sum game is some sort of game show) and the little rest doesn't matter (and should they start to get too vocal, we'll invent a law against them).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Terrorists who get caught don't continue to plan attacks...
The fundamental problem with the privacy-vs-security argument is that it is a false dichotomy:
The fundamental problem with eavesdropping is that it assumes that the bad guys are willing to divulge key operational details over an insecure channel. Even the dumbest of criminals knows to shut up when the cops are around. So who do the feds expect to catch? That's right - ordinary Americans like you and me. When we become a "problem" to those in power, they'll have hours of phone calls and pages of emails, in which they will find something - no matter how innocent - which, when taken out of context, sounds nefarious. The famous quote, "Give me six sentences by even the most upright man and I will find a reason to hang him..." (or similar) comes to mind.
Rather, I think it is helpful to expose the lies used to increase the amount of political power wielded by the executive branch.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
White Trash.
/. now?
What is it with this nigger stuff all over
It doesn't even take malicious access. In the UK, some low level government peon recently snail-mailed the financial details of 25 million people on discs that went missing. Since that broke, a slew of other government agencies, from health through to defence have dumped "me too" admissions into the shitstorm.
The government's response? They'll put "new procedures" in place to ensure that it can't blah blah again blah fight them on the beaches blah.
They're still pressing ahead with the National Database, misnamed as a National ID card (the equivelant of the USian Real ID). It's Total Information Awareness with a fluffier spin on it, but exactly the same goals: to know everything, about everyone, all the time, and Goddamn the consequences when (not if) the black hats get their greasy fingers on it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It may not look like it due to the title, but yes, that's the one I was citing. It's the first link in the submission.
It was supposed to be the "main link" for the story, too, but maybe those don't show up now? I'm sure I put it in there and set the link type to "text" so I don't know what became of it. They used to show up under the story.
...they justify it and gain popular support/acquiescence using supposedly rational arguments, so it is a worthwhile expenditure of effort to criticise and dismantle those arguments.
So if some security expert idiot is wandering around convincing people that security "versus" privacy is a "zero sum game", then one effective counter-tactic is to explain how that is incorrect.
You are not reasoning with "them" as in, "the Federal Government". You are reasoning with "them" as in, "your fellow citizens, whose approval or at least inaction is needed to allow these things to happen."
Read Pynchon.
As an actual assessment of security policy "Privacy and Security are a zero-sum game" is pretty much worthless. There are obvious empirical counterarguments viz. prisons, military bases and ships, and OpenBSD. The statement manages to be both too optimistic and too pessimistic all at once. It ignores the fact that many policies end up achieving a net gain of less than zero(letting the TSA bother passengers and not even glance at cargo, for instance), even if we value security and privacy equally. It also ignores the fact that there a fair number of possible policies that achieve a positive net gain.
As a propaganda slogan, though, it is a masterstroke. It manages to imply, while sounding like good, solid, hardheaded, professional advice, that reductions in privacy automatically provide security, that defenders of privacy are enemies of security, and that proposals for plans that protect privacy and security are a bunch of unrealistic pie-in-the-sky crap.
It also manages to completely ignore a facet of security that the American public has been absolutely terrible at(and politicians and the media have been all too willing to help them continue to be so): Risk assessment. We suck at it. We also have a strong bias in favor of flashy interventions and against boring ones. We often end up with interventions strongly modified by various political interests and of sharply reduced effectiveness. "Privacy and Security are a zero-sum game" makes it sound like we actually have it pulled together, that the professionals are on the case; when we hardly know what game we are actually playing.
Hey, I was not trolling, check the parent before moderating, sheeesh.
Prisons can be so secure that they hamper the ability of a prisoner to be rehabilitated...or worse, make the prisoner more unstable and at-risk for criminal behavior. Look at what's neatly called administrative segregation. It used to be known as solitary confinement, but now all types of people are put in ad-seg...people who are targets of gangs (who have done nothing wrong) for example. Some countries consider solitary confinement torture.
At any rate, solitary confinement is and for a person who is wrongfully put there, push them further down the spiral of anti-authoritarianism and harmful behavior. Each case greatly increases their likelihood of committing crimes when put back in general population or released.
The point is, even for a PRISON, you cannot say that security is always non-zero-sum. The converse is true, ALL security/civil rights issues are a zero sum game. The sooner we as a people realize that NO environment can be make truly secure, the sooner we can actually trying to start solving some of our worst problems.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Yeah, but you wrote the "N" word ... Instant -1 Troll.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
It is my belief that the government phone data mining program only logged phone numbers and not calls. If they could associate a phone number with a terrorist then they could look at the network of calls to and from that number and try to construct webs of calling. The phone company already keeps this information for billing purposes and probably the gov't asked them to hang on to it for longer periods so that they could retrospectively mine this data for linkages between numbers. Trying to keep conversations for everyone would just be too overwhelming not to mention the time required to try to interpret what was was being said.
Number of people who have been killed in the United States in the past five years by terrorism: zero.
Number of people who have been killed by the over-zealous organs of the state in the name of "security": greater than zero.
Ergo, increased "security" is killing people and stripping them of their privacy. So as a matter of empirical fact the things people are calling "security" are negative, and the loss of privacy is negative, so it is a lose-lose situation for ordinary law-abiding Americans. They would be SAFER with less "security", as well as having more privacy. And more of something else, too.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
There is simply no correlation between the two. There is no function or relationship that can map one onto the other, in either direction. There aren't enough parameters. It might be possible to define a function f() with the parameters of security, privacy, base cost, cost per incident, ease of implementation, time of implementation, ease of use, and latency, such that the function (which will not be linear) produces a constant. I don't guarantee it, though. Individuals are too variable, between each other and even between moments for the same individual, and an 8 dimensional non-linear topology is too simple to capture that. Even the sci-fi notion of psychohistory didn't work on individuals, but security and privacy is all about interactions between individuals.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You called someone white trash.
You do that. But you should have your facts right:
there was nothing unsophisticated about Mr. Reid's intended weapon: a wedge of plastic explosive dyed black and concealed in the sole of his high-top suede sport shoe. An official of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed that a highly unstable component known as triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, served as the trigger. Threaded through the plastic explosive and topped with a long, black-powder fuse running up through his shoelace, the TATP igniter would have allowed the British-born Mr. Reid to set off his charge without wires and batteries" a>href="http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200201/msg00100.html" a>Didn't see this in the WSJ
The fundamental problem with eavesdropping is that it assumes that the bad guys are willing to divulge key operational details over an insecure channel.
The bad guy believes that all channels are insecure.
The bad guy believes in indirection, misdirection. The bad guy doesn't think like a geek. He thinks like a magician. He plays on the psychology of his audience. The fatigue of the listener, his ignorance of language, idioms and cultures.
The bad guy believes in hiding his essential communications in the background. noise. When the cops are around the the criminal ratchets up the volume and the noise all the more.
"Giorgio warned me, 'We have a saying in this business: 'Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"
This was not meant to be a hard and fast equation, folks. Just like, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" isn't meant to be 100% true all the time. I can force that damn thing to drink if I want it to, I guarantee you. It won't be pretty. I'm not that mean though.
Not everyone in your government is out to get you. This guy is working with the national intelligence director, you better believe he wants to get all the intelligence he can. It's his job to go as far as he can to get the most benefit for his job. I'd agree this is definitely not the best way to get intel, and it probably won't be secured well enough when they get it. At the same time, someone really intelligent is probably telling Giorgio and McConnell the exact opposite. Really, it's the lawmakers we've (Americans, here) voted into office that are the ones to blame if this type of insanity passes. They're the ones that are supposed to make sure that the tenth amendment is upheld... "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
Remember that when you vote for President, that's one man that represents 330 million people. When you vote for a senator, he/she represents only 3.3 million. When you vote for a house member, they represent 785 thousand. Get down to state and local government and the numbers drop even more significantly. Vote for a smaller government... It's too bad Ron Paul has no chance to get elected.
The entire debate relies on the idea that the government can be "trusted" with the practice of data mining and electronics surveillance and phone/networking tapping. A wide net traps many fishes and you have to insure the motives are always pure. Unfortunately, some of the "targets" for surveillance under the "patriot act" included a group of Quakers. See: http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf/house_nsabrief_docs_012006.html For the record, Quakers are against all war and violence. There hasn't been any answers as to what "threat" they presented.
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
That there's no correlation is just not true at all. There are plenty of things people can do with enough information about you, including but not limited to scams, manipulation, and impersonation. I hope it's obvious to you that each of those causes you to lose security, and that every individual's loss of security is, in general, a loss of security for society as a whole. All individuals, obviously, cannot be disconnected from society or there would be no society to speak of. The gains may not be as connected, but it's not too hard to find a correlation between the two.
Now, that they don't equal some fixed sum is probably correct. I'm not really convinced that we could even assign meaningful numbers to such things at all.
It's attention getting. The shock value gives the poster a buzz, like the goatse posts. Don't take it seriously.
(If all other parameters are set to zero, then security will be equal to privacy. If the sophistication of a transaction is great enough, security is inversely proportional to privacy, which is clearly an unstable arrangement, which is why security should always follow a KIS approach.)
Likewise, if you want both security and privacy, you can indeed have both but it can't be free. Increasing both must produce some overhead somewhere in the system. This might be perfectly acceptable, and indeed should be in most cases. (Most? Well, have you installed IPSec? User-side SSL certificates? Host and Network Intrusion detection software? No? Then you've sacrificed some measure of security and/or privacy to save yourself time, money, effort, or whatever. That may be reasonable, sure, but it means you're willing to compromise on privacy or security at some level.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
most of the threats to your privacy don't even come from government, they come from businesses. and the businesses are just going to lobby Congress to limit their liability in case they do lose your data. because accountability is expensive. you don't think AT&T is ever going to have to account for anything, do you? of course not, they've got people. hell, even credit reporting agencies have no accountability. Congress decided that it would be your responsibility to make sure the data is accurate. you don't really expect security if there is no penalty for failure, do you?
But we know this doesn't happen. It's easy to conceive of systems in which a decrease in privacy leads to a corresponding decrease in security. For example, take an existing bank system and decrease the privacy of administrative passwords. Does this change make the bank system more or less secure? Conversely, take an anonymous ballot system and decrease its security protections against exposing the choices registered by each voter. Does this increase privacy or decrease it?
If we look at fundamentals, systems are secure when the conditions of identity, ownership, and trust are defined and enforced at each point in the system. Just that. Properly specified and implemented systems will provide appropriate access to appropriate parties (the system meets functional specs), and not otherwise (the system meets security specs). People like Ed Giorgio who don't get this are simply not qualified to talk about security.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
And what about those filthy Neutrals? With enemies you know where they stand but with Neutrals, who knows? It sickens me.
Please, could someone translate that into English for me?
What the heck is "privacy" if not a belief in one's ownership of their private information — an imaginary property, which the article's prolific submitter holds in such disdain?..
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The author reasons that, due to Metcalfe's law,
ARTHUR
(standing)
I am going to become a superhero! You
know, p-part time at first.
FISHLADDER
(standing)
Christ in Heaven!
(Arthur sits again.)
FISHLADDER
Look at yourself; you're built like a
sensible shoe, you shouldn't be jumping
around town in a body sock fighting crime!
ARTHUR
Well, I haven't actually fought any crime
yet --
FISHLADDER
Good! Keep it that way! Crime fights
back! Remember the lesson of Metcalfe.
ARTHUR
M-Metcalfe?
FISHLADDER
Metcalfe! Head of Shipping and Receiving,
third floor. Metcalfe! He lost all his
game pieces, just like you. Cashed in his
401K and bought a jet pack! Now the poor
bastard needs a machine. To poop!
> Your security ends up unaffected, but only as a result of a transfer of the damage to time and money.
But then SOMEBODY ends up affected. There's no "board" here to transfer all the losses to, so somebody has to bear them. If anything, you point out how the costs are borne by society as a whole.
Because terrorism is the only threat.
...
If it was not for terrorists,
America would be like a nice playground full of flowers and little rabbits.
There would be no murder, no drug trafficking, no rapes, no burglaries,
My knowledge of anthropology and sociology, the sciences of society, and of psychology, the science of the individual, are too limited to say how you'd go about maximizing the potential security and privacy of society as a whole, or how to get individuals to then take the time to effectively make use of that potential. I can say, with a high level of certainty, that it requires superior education. Knowledge is power, and power is key to turning a possibility into a reality. (This was noted by Plato, in his essay on democracy, which he says can only function correctly in an educated society.)
I can also say with moderate certainty that it also requires that common concerns have a common solution, and that paranoia (on the part of individuals or by authorities) is a part of the problem, NOT a part of the solution. Pessimizing produces less efficent results in science and engineering and risks introducing flaws, so it is reasonable to conclude that pessimizing a society will do likewise. That, however, requires better interfaces and better error management, just as it would in science and engineering.
Of course, none of this is free, and society ends up footing the bill for any of the better alternatives. However, one might argue that a better-functioning society will end up producing more useful work, so ends up covering (or even exceeding) the costs of self-improvement. Although everyone pays regardless, some solutions produce a return that makes it worth paying for. Question is, who decides what solution is worth it, and how? The self is at the core of American culture, for example, but this is a society-wide problem requiring an efficient societal solution. You can't change a culture just to fix one problem, even if it's not obvious if you could fix the (very significant) problem without doing so.
My preference would be to bite the bullet, invest in better quality (and more extensive) education for a much larger percentage of society, invest in social solutions to common problems (such as universal healthcare but to an equal or superior standard to the private healthcare that currently exists), and see what people do as a result. Absolutely no sane person would ever consider giving me the authority or the resources to try this, and I can't blame them. I sure as hell wouldn't vote for me, even if my ideas would work.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The title comes from the article that is linked at the bottom.
If we were talking about software, the fact that key information that are relatively easy to get had to be kept secret would be deemed very poor design and would be scorn upon by the people on slashdot. It is security/privacy by obscurity.
It should not matter that you bank account is lost by the government on a DVD, because if the system was properly design, the only thing people could do with such information would be to give you money. Not take some out without your permission or get a loan under your name.
It is true that without identification that are difficult to falsify, it is difficult to open bank account without having to rely on personal information that criminal can easily get.
Never wonder that identity theft were much more a problem in countries that do not have an Id card?
http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2007/03/12/identity-theft-without-identification-infrastructure/
Smokescreen? Frustration that Barack Obama is doing so well? What I wonder is why so much of it is accompanied by "Ron Paul" slogans. I mean, the attempt at guilt by association is obvious, but is the falsehood of the "racist newsletter" thing really not just as well known as the accusations themselves? And a small, Constitutional government would not have the power to grant favors to lazy, stupid people for being white. I guess racists really are all just stupid trash. Can't even figure out they're the ones who need a bloated nanny state most of all.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
This is why I provide no real information to any government agency. I deliberately falsify all information on every document I have ever provided.
It is NOT because I am a criminal. It is not because I have something to hide. It is not specifically that I fear the government.
It is that I have firsthand knowledge that our government does not take the steps necessary to protect information about me. 50$ and a license plate number can get anybody all the information they want on me. My residential address, where I work etc.
I just can't risk some crazy nut getting all worked up and finding me. I like my privacy enough to die for it.
'Zero-Sum' means that a gain in one quantity always necessitates an equal loss in the other, as in P + S = 4 is always true, so S cannot be increased except by reducing P. The article says somebody applied that Newtonian truism outside of a context in which it holds true.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..