Cybersecurity and Piracy on the High Seas

Schneier points out an interesting article comparing modern cybersecurity to piracy on the high seas in the early 1800s. The article extends the comparison into projected action based on historical context. "Similarly, in many ways, current U.S. policy on the security of electronic commerce is similar to Adams' appeasement approach to the Barbary pirates. The U.S. government's inability to dictate a consistent cyber commerce protection policy is creating a financial burden on the U.S. private sector to maintain a status quo, when those resources could be used to mount a more-effective Internet-focused defense. In the case of financial fraud on the Internet, the costs associated with fraudulent transactions are currently borne by private companies, which then have to pass those costs on to their customers. This basically creates a system in which the financial institutions are paying a type of 'tribute' to the cyber criminals, just as Adams did to the Barbary pirates."

Comments

Re:silly

[thygrrr]

Err, it's not about software piracy.

WTF is this guy talking about?

[TubeSteak]

We can go back to the example of how this strategy can be a success by looking at U.S. efforts on the illegal drug trade's supply lines across the Caribbean. The harassment, search and seizure activities effectively raised the cost of transporting illegal drugs, thereby forcing many drug cartels to build more-expensive transportation networks, and in some cases forcing criminals out of the market altogether. The US War on Drugs has led to lower prices and higher purity of the product being smuggled into the country.

The rest of this article is full of similar crap ideas and analogies.

Aaron Turner, who manages security technology transfer and commercialization for the Idaho National Laboratory, previously worked in several of Microsoft's security divisions. Oh. I see.
I guess it's easier to create an international body to oversee the internet than get Microsoft to put out a secure product.

Re:What do you know?

[maxume]

Saying the government bailed out all of those companies is a gross and horrible oversimplification.

People who Bear Stearns owed money to got bailed out. Bear Stearns no longer exists as a company(most of the operations continue to exist under J.P. Morgan).

Countrywide and Citigroup didn't get anything more than cheap credit from the government.

Mod Parent UP

[postbigbang]

Very few political entities are bereft of terrorism. Schier once again makes numerous mistakes in pointing to the culpable. The culpable are: all of us, ranging from users teaching users, to ISPs, to the website owners, to the makers of protocols with holes like Swiss cheese (and apologies to the Swiss). It could be fixed, but no one wants to claim the nexus of responsibility.

The terrorism label is a red herring, great for propaganda and useless war mongering. No one doubts the existence of many organizations that will murder, some en masse, in the name of their cause.