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Internet Monitoring: Who Watches the Watchers?
wiredmikey writes "Here's an interesting take on the IT security industry and tools being sold and used by to monitor internet users. It's no secret that many states and nations are censoring and monitoring the Internet. Many of these governments are considered authoritarian regimes, often times with trade restrictions and other sanctions against them. Most of these censorship systems are based on proprietary, enterprise hardware and solutions. Unfortunately, those who decide where these tools end up are often torn between conflicting interests. How many services and devices are actually being used by people whom we prefer would not have access to them? How long until they are used against us, even if indirectly? At which point do we have to stop looking at Information Security as a market, and begin viewing it as a matter of defense and (inter)national security?"
It will be used against you.
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on why they permit sales outside of the country followed quickly by asking yourself this, why do we expect to hold a corporation to a standard that we do not expect to hold our government too?
By that I mean, it sure is SAFE and EASY to go after a company to uphold values you hold dear but damn if anyone wants to stand up to their own government when it maintains relationships one way or another with the same regimes.
Then top it off with multinationals, to whom are they beholden. If you have offices in the US, Germany, Russia, and China, whose laws take precedence? What if your further incorporated on some tiny island for tax purposes?
Yes its a bad thing what these countries do, but guess what, they always have and will, hoping to limit the damage by limiting the software available won't get much relief to the oppressed. That change happens at home by getting the right people in government who actually stand behind the words they use on the campaign trail.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
than we're really willing to conclude. The American perspective is obvious that somehow if their technology should fall through the invisible hands of free market into the lap of a reigning dictator, then and only then is there a problem.
Americans have traded everything from stinger missiles to M16's with terrorists like al-quaeda as well as despots like iran and egypt for decades, and quite lucratively as well. Israel renders Palestine cities in flaming ruin not through sorcery, but the F-16 and apache gunship of american design and sale. our private corporations willfully bow to the will of islamic dictatorships and 'communist when it suits us' regimes like china as they mandate the strictest control of their citizens through censorship. our senate and library of congress are prohibited from searching wikileaks, and our schools ban searches for concepts like 'hacking.' thoughtcrimes like taking pictures of a well designed airport causeway or a large building are likewise branded terrorist acts.
The answer is that the problem does not exist in the systems created to censor; those from bluecoat or mcafee or even humble BSD and Linux. the bureaucrats, and plutocracy that control and vend these systems are in many cases tacit participants in their creation. They subsist garnering profits through dividends in their investment of bluecoat shares, and through securing the praise and reward of their constituency and corporate lobbying groups when a new deal is inked.
as if to turn a blind eye to the rest of the world, Security Week completely ignores the wrath of ACTA, DMCA, and the forcible seizure of domains registered abroad as though that which is the doctrine of kind-hearted multi-billion dollar industries is without question in the good service of all mankind.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Keep wishing for your mythical free-market to "fix things". Be prepared to wait a very, very long time for that to actually happen, however. You Adam Smith fanboys all seem to continuously forget that "the invisible hand" requires a fully informed market to function properly. To suggest that "the general public", as a whole, has even the most remote possibility of being fully informed on a matter as complex as network/computer security is, to understate it by a bunch, absurd. I am not satisfied to live in a world where some magic akin to fairy dust will supposedly ensure that vendors only sell secure products. You're god damned right I want laws that require a certain level of security be engineered into the products and services that are offered to the market. And no, I do not want the law to specify the technology, only the need for it, and most importantly, the penalties for failing to provide it. It should hurt, by than a quarter or two worth of profits, when TJ Max or Blue Cross decides to cut corners on the guarding my personal information which they have insisted they must store in their systems. It should be a crime to be so negligent with so much treasure.
At which point do we have to stop looking at Information Security as a market, and begin viewing it as a matter of defense and (inter)national security?"
I believe all the governments of the world are unanimous in saying they don't like the influence that people in other countries have on their citizens. Thus, the internet is a threat to all governments, everywhere, and the solutions will be varying degrees of censorship and control of critical infrastructure until access to the internet in its present form is impossible and is instead subsumed by a global network which mirrors the geographical and sociolpolitical needs of those governments.
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