Thursday, June 14, 2007

Symbiosis

If one doesn't separate the human from the endpoint system e.g. which is what client side security is really all about, then - and only then - will we make progress in the IT security battle. The human, peripherals and machine comprise the client side endpoint which needs to be protected in its entirety! Now let's think about Integrity, Availability and Confidentiality again.



Aside: Lines are being blurred between the conceptual client and server roles each day. Service orientated enterprise architectures are only a minor part of the puzzle... Let us never forget the users, administrators, operators and developers as part of the overall puzzle. (Or is it a mystery?)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I see what you mean.

The Roman Catholic Church had a marvellous system for avoiding bigamy. When you wanted to get married you had to produce a recently issued baptism certificate. The church in which you were married annotated the certificate and returned it to the church which issued it. That church then annotated your entry in the baptismal register to the effect that you had gotten married.

Next time you applied for a baptism cert it carried the annotation and you couldn't marry again without a death cert for No. 1 spouse.

I was always impressed by the sheer elegance of this system in a non-tech age.

That is, until I had reason to see it in practical operation. My own annotated baptism cert was returned by the church to me instead of to the issuing church, and when I had occasion to inspect my own grandfather's entry in the baptismal register there was no annotation showing he had ever married.

You can't be too careful where humans are concerned.