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Marketplace of Ideas (2) - Response |
Tuesday, 06 October 2009 18:22 |
Question of the month: "...With the borderless nature of the Internet, is any plan really going to prevent attacks? What can the United States do to develop cooperation with other countries to secure cyberspace? Do you think this report will spur change or will it be forgotten or ignored like the Clinton administration’s earlier attempt to secure the Internet as expressed in its National Plan for Information Systems Protection?" From: "Harris Georgiou"
The US Department of Homeland Security is responsible for what its name proclaims: security inside the "homeland". One cannot expect a political plan created for the protection of vital national resources (including information infrastructure), especially under the scope of the latest terrorist attacks and anti-terrorist wars, to be adequate for providing the means for securing a world-wide self-organized network like the Internet. Although the goals in each case are similar, that is preventing someone from using the network to destroy its own infrastructure in essence, the application bases are totally incompatible. The most prominent way of developing a secure Internet is to exploit its self-organization. Any centralized approach would sooner or later fail, because the structure and the current form of the inherent interconnectivity are too complex and too diverge to establish a common frame of reference. Instead, each segment (user, node, group, organization, country) can formulate its own custom-made means to implement strategies towards the common goal. If a bank is to be protected against electronic attacks, the main effort has to be focused in implementing effective "sealed" environments with multiple layers of strong local security, making these attacks virtually harmless, instead of trying to identify every single bit of traffic going through its network throughout the world. As the global network and its internal interconnections become increasingly complex, security has to be focused on the local elements - that principle applies both to end-users, as well as government policies.
Original Article: IEEE - The Institude quarterly, Marketplace of Ideas, "National Plan for Information Systems Protection?" (question of the month), June 2003, vol.27(2), pp.6. -- Response published under the same column in the next issue: Sept 2003, vol.27(3), pp.5.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 06 October 2009 21:07 |