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Schneier's Keynote At Linux.conf.au
Stony Stevenson writes "Computer security expert Bruce Schneier took a swipe at a number of sacred cows of security including RFID tags, national ID cards, and public CCTV security cameras in his keynote address to Linux.conf.au (currently being held in Melbourne, Australia). These technologies were all examples of security products tailored to provide the perception of security rather than tackling actual security risks, Schneier said. The discussion of public security — which has always been clouded by emotional decision making — has been railroaded by groups with vested interests such as security vendors and political groups, he claimed. 'For most of my career I would insult "security theater" and "snake oil" for being dumb. In fact, they're not dumb. As security designers we need to address both the feeling and the reality of security. We can't ignore one. It's not enough to make someone secure, that person needs to also realize they've been made secure. If no-one realizes it, no-one's going to buy it,' Schneier said."
. . . Bruce has figured out the real money's in security theater, not in security, and he wants a piece of that action.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
"tailored to provide the perception of security rather than tackling actual security risks." Isn't this also the mission statement for the TSA?
"There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people." - Thomas Jefferson
CCTV almost never captures what you set out to catch. In many organizations, it's a knee-jerk reaction to some kind of incident. ie) Something got pinched, someone received an ass-kicking, etc. Even if you do catch it, you'll never be able to identify/recognize/charge/convict the person based on the video image alone. 4CIF at 30 fps is pretty much as good as it gets right now in most feasible installations. All you'll be able to say is, "Subject is hatless...REPEAT...HATLESS!" (And that's even if he's in the frame). The PTZ will just pan around aimlessly on a tour program, or be pointed at the wrong thing. However, wide-spread deployment of CCTV systems is still not futile; you just usually end up catching something that were never really looking for in the first place. People and vehicular traffic movements, facility useage, or realtime video of an incident in progress that just happens to be going-on in front of the lens. You can establish time frames of entry or exit, or use it to clue-you-in to the right path to finding the real evidence you're looking for. From a security systems perspective, more CCTV is better, but not to mitigate direct and specific threats. Only general ones. Or sometimes you just luck-out and with a good booby shot in the atrium of an office building.
I think that would of been a catchier title...
For many of the same reasons there is no semblance of a secure electronic voting platform on the horizon. The reason is not that such a platform would be difficult to design. The reason is that it would not be profitable.
To be secure it would have to be open. In the case of voting platforms that means every line of code, every encryption algorithm, and all the hardware has to be open, published, and known. Nobody has yet figured out how to make enough money from such a system to outspend Diebold's lobbyists and earn considered from election officials.
As a nerd and geek and long time hacker, it is perfectly clear to me that I've been missing the "theater" aspect of the technology that I love.
Take Linux for instance. I have had varying levels of success getting non-geeks to use it, but what is missing is the warm and fuzzies that make it psychologically comfortable to not be using Windows or a Macintosh.
There are two sides to change of any kind. (1) The actual details of change. (2) The psychological affirmation that it is worth the effort. No matter how valid the argument presented by the first, if it does not provide the second, it will fail.
If we wish to push Linux, we have to create theater around it.
http://linux.conf.au/programme/wednesday
This is an argument I have to make with friends when I claim that Bush-Cheney is the most successful administration in US history. I agree with exactly ZERO of what they have done but as far as scaring the shit out of people, robbing us blind, and in general being dicks you cannot argue that they are unsuccessful.
It's all about your frame of reference.
I think of these things as kind of like an electric heater. Most people would argue that an electric heater is one of the most inefficient devices known to mankind. However, when viewed with the proper perspective, it's anything but. Put it this way: an electric heater is basically designed to waste power by transducing electrical energy into heat and spewing it into the immediate environment. A heater does this with virtually no losses. Therefore, an electric heater is almost 100% efficient, as long as there's nothing coming out of it that doesn't qualify as waste.
Which pretty much describes the Bush Administration.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
These "perception of security" things are still bad, because they create REAL threats to security, in the name of trying to make people feel more secure.
I will take the reality over a false perception, any day.
I guess this would explain why just about everybody in Canada thinks crime is on the increase, even though the numbers conclusively prove otherwise.
You can't sell security hardware and convince nervous old women to throw away their rights if they know there's a long list of things more important than so-called "security". And a lot of those "nervous old women", by the way, are male, in their 30's, and convinced that everything will be fine if we just forget all that due process nonsense and start trusting the cops to throw the right people in jail.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I don't know about western traditions - the Gauls or others Egh. I was feeling lazy, but here is the Wikipedia page about it. While most people may know it first from the Bible, I think it's the Codex Hammurabi that's often credited for having that written down first.
I am not a lawyer or a law student (so whatever I speak of "tradition of legal code" would be out of my arse), but this is the first written code of law to the west of China (and that's what I mean by "western"; like it or not, the Middle "East" and Muslims had frequent interaction with Europe, at least enough so if you want to divide the world into "East" and "West", they would fall in with "West"), so it must mean *something*.
Yeah, that's why Twofish was one of the 5 finalist algorithms of NIST's AES competition.
And Blowfish is still unbroken after 15 years.
I should be such a crappy cryptographer!
In other words, he is an expert on publicizing what most serious researches already know about general security flaws and problems.
And the problem with this is what? Given how badly people misunderstand computer security we don't have enough people doing this kind of job.