Tuesday, February 26, 2008

On the Delay of Security in New Technology (Book-Inspired Post 1)

It's interesting to see how long it can take before people will recognize problems with new technology. When reading "The Cuckoo's Egg", I was repeatedly shocked by how both government agencies and the self-proclaimed "enlightened" academics of Berkeley were sluggish in their response to Cliff Stoll's warnings about hackers. It seemed like the problem was so new to them that they had not considered the damage that could be done, so Stoll was dismissed as being overly concerned about the hacking for a good long time.

I suppose that this is true of any new technology -- as seat belts and other safety devices for cars didn't come about until long after automobiles were prevalent in society, so measures for computer and network security didn't really concern the average person until computers had become more common in society (as we saw in the book). I think that one cause of this is excitement about new technology; we become so enthusiastic about the good things that we can do with these new tools that we don't think about how they may also be used for ill. Conversely, there may be some who think that a new technology is just a fad and therefore doesn't merit the time and effort needed to improve security and safety. Fortunately, people like Cliff Stoll see problems with new technology that need to be addressed and (perhaps more importantly) have the persistence to ensure that they are indeed dealt with.

I wonder what the next big technology will be, and how long we'll take to make it safe.

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