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

What do you know?

[DrHackenbush]

Interesting. Government is less effective than private companies. Who would have guessed?

The modern internet piracy dictionary

[imyy4u2]

Looks like modern pirates would have a lot of words to relearn...

Hijacking - 1. Taking over a post on Slashdot.

Terrorism - 1. DOS attack against all the root DNS servers simultaneously. 2. Slashdotting a website.

"Arrrr..." - 1. Phrase uttered by someone who has just been linked to goatse.cz

One-Eye - 1. Asshole.

Pirate Flag - 1. Used to indicate a box has been pwned. 2. Used by Maddox (maddox.xmission.com) as a TM.

Booty - 1. A woman's butt.

Re:Oddly enough...

[CRCulver]

While the religious basis of the Barbary pirates' acts is contentious (as is Washington's supposed insistence that the U.S. is a specifically Christian nation), I'd highly recommend reading up about the Barbary Wars in London's Victory in Tripoli . Most Americans don't learn much about these skirmishes in school, since the usual course is just to skip from the American Revolution straight to the War of 1812 when covering wars. That's a pity, because the fight against the Barbary pirates was a big part of shaping the U.S. military into what it is today. It's not for nothing that the Marine's song references the shores of Tripoli (the Halls of Montezuma line is also a sadly forgotten episode).

You can't have it both ways

[dave562]

Either the government stays out of regulating and securing the internet or they don't. Which one do you really want? Do you want the government to be responsible for internet security enough to give them free reign to the point where they have control over all content? Or do you want to hold private industry responsible for securing their business transactions?

I'm of the opinion that the government should be there to hold private industry liable for any breaches of personal data that leads to fraud. If someone steals my credit information and makes purchases with them, the credit card company should be on the hook for not verifying the identity of the person who made the purchase. The merchant should be on the hook for not verifying the identity of the purchaser. The whole system needs to be changed. Instead of giving out free credit, they need to only give credit to those who ask for it. Turn it from a push to a pull system and validate the hell out of the puller.

On an only semi-related tangant, I'm waiting for the explosion in fraudulant health care claims. The health care cards themselves are simple pieces of paper. It is easy to get a picture idea with your picture and someone else's name on it. With the cost of health care skyrocketting in this country it is only a matter of time before people start getting health services under someone else's name. And I already know what is going to happen... the person whose name got abused is going to be liable for it, not the health providers who okayed the procedure in the first place.

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:Oddly enough...

[Zadaz]

At my school we got halfway through the American Revolution, then went straight to the summer break. When we came back in the fall we were studying WWII, leaving me to infer that the colonies had won independence.

I didn't even know there was an American civil war until I visited the south, where I found out it's still being fought.