The Evolution of Security

ABSTRACT

Security people are never in charge unless an acute embarrassment has occurred. Otherwise, their advice is tempered by “economic reality,” which is to say that security is a means, not an end. This is as it should be. Since means are about tradeoffs, security is about trade-offs, but you knew all that.

REFERENCES

• 1: Costs of Information Assurance. 2002. National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (August); http://trust.ncms.org/pdf/CostInfoAssur-NCMS.pdf.
• 2: Borge, D. 2001. The Book of Risk. John Wiley & Sons.
• 3: Gorman, S.P., Kulkarni, R., Schintler, L., Stough, R. 2004. Is Microsoft a threat to national security? The effect of technology monocultures on critical infrastructure. George Mason University, Infrastructure Mapping Project working paper; http://policy.gmu.edu/imp/research/Microsoft_Threat.pdf. (Full discussion of these results is outside the scope of this essay.)
• 4: Myneni, R.B., et al. 2007. Large seasonal swings in leaf area of Amazon rain forests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(12): 4820-4823.
• 5: Holldobler, B., Wilson, E.O. 1990. The Ants. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• 6: Seeley, T.D., and Tarpy, D.R. 2007. Queen promiscuity lowers disease within honeybee colonies. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 274: 67-72.
• 7: Wassenaar, T.M., Blaser, M.J. 2002. Contagion on the Internet. Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases 8(3).
• 8: Jones, J.C., Myerscough, M.R., Graham, S., Oldroyd, B.P. 2004. Honeybee nest thermoregulation: Diversity promotes stability. Science 305(5682): 402-404.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.5 Security and Protection (D.4.6, K.4.2)

Additional Classification:
  A. General Literature
  A.m MISCELLANEOUS

  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.6 Security and Protection

General Terms:
Design, Documentation, Security