Security Response

Here at Symantec, one of our beliefs is that keeping people safe online requires more than just a knowledge of technology. It requires a knowledge of how people - both good guys and bad guys - actually use technology. It also requires an understanding of how people view technology and safety. It requires the ability to communicate different types of ideas to a wide variety of people; from teenaged users to the CFO, from the college educator to the data entry operator. It's a huge job and I was just reflecting today on how very fortunate I am to be working within a group that not only sees the value of the multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches, but one that actively supports and encourages it.

I recently spent a week at the Santa Fe Institute, learning about scientific advances in everything from the communication...

This week will find me at the Santa Fe Institute. Wednesday morning kicks off with the Adaptive and Resilient Computing Workshop, and if last year's workshop is any indicator, this one should be very interesting indeed. Meeting with colleagues who work outside the computer security space is extremely informative and helps us to prepare for the many new faces of computing. Although, that only makes sense if you know ahead of time where some technologies are likely to exist and only then can you begin to shape ideas on how you might protect the assets those technologies hold.

For example, let's say that within the next two years, all deep water canals in the state of Florida will be protected against alligator infestation by computerized swimming sharks that work together to form a sort of "canal IDS." We need to make sure the sharks stay up and running to keep those annoying alligators away...

It's been a week since I finished my VB talk (almost on time). WhileI didn't get to the part of the talk exploring computer games and fun videosand their relevance to teaching people about security (and computerskills in general, and life skills, too!), I did get some interestingfeedback from some of the delegates. The one thing I've heard mostconsistently is that the ideas my talk put forth apply to technicalpeople, as well as not-quite-so-technical people. My first reactionwas—“wow”. I was hoping it would eventually get around to this. Onepurpose of the paper was to initiate bridge building between differentmindsets. The fact that I was able to get this across in the firstsegment of this research is just, well, unexpected.

People seemed...