Simplicity is Security

Per the best of the best in presenting, what breeds a good presentation slide deck? Simplicity

I want to pose a statement. “Simplicity is Security”. The reason I say this is that this day in age, at least in the US, ‘convenience’ is king. And we try to protect those conveniences with ‘security’. Let me start over a bit, this train of thought all started when I started to explain the insecurities in WiMAX to my wife. We saw a WiMAX device that plugged straight into your computer. I told her this was bad because by connecting to this you have no barrier between you and the ‘bad guys’ other than possibly the Windows Firewall. Her answer surprised me. ‘So?’ is all she said.

Japan doesn’t use ‘Check Cards’ or even really credit cards for that matter. To get such a card you need to go through a book worth of paper work, so it’s just not ‘convenient’ for most people, so they don’t get them. So guess what? They don’t bank online, and they don’t buy stuff online. I racked my brain to figure out what possibly could be on her computer that a ‘bad guy’ would want. I couldn’t think of anything (maybe you can). The government relies on paper backups of anything electronic (so they hardly make electronic versions). Signatures are based on stamps that are difficult to copy. The worst a hacker could do on her computer is use it as a zombie, and even then, their ISPs detect and disconnect excessive use.

Where did we as “Security Professionals” go wrong? Was it the fat paychecks we wanted? Was it the fear of the ‘underground’? Reality seems to dictate that we will continue on this path from the analog to the digital, from paper and clerks to networks and AI. The question I want to ask you though is; Should we continue down the path of “MORE SECURITY” or should we deviate a bit for simpler, possibly non-technical practices?

In these last two posts you may assume that I favor the Japanese culture and way of life over a US one. You would be mistaken, I simply learn, take the best parts of what I learn, and try to apply them where I can. Learning from others triumphs and defeats, strengths and weaknesses is a basic human function that we a humanoids should embrace.