Security — Then and Now
Once upon a time, a lock on your door and a key in your pocket meant security. Those days are over.
Technology’s Reach and Security’s Grasp
Technology becomes more seductive every day, but we are quicker to embrace its benefits than to protect ourselves from the less desirable consequences that can often follow. The results have included pollution, global warming, and now vulnerability to cyberattacks. The Obama administration's pledge to decisively address cybersecurity provides an opportunity to close the gap between our technological reach, and our ...
Security Standards and the Internet: Keeping the Cyber Barbarian’s Beyond the Gates
Our headlong rush to migrate almost all key aspects of modern society to the Internet means that we must design new virtual defenses to emulate the walls and bars, guards and locks that protect us in the physical world. In this article, I survey the challenges to implementing cybersecurity, the types of standards used to provide it, the organizations that ...
Enabling an Ecosystem of Security: An Interview with PCI SSC’s Bob Russo
The PCI Security Standards Council has enabled a unique infrastructure to protect credit and debit card data as it passes through the payment process. That infrastructure provides a holistic model that can, and should be emulated in other areas of on-line vulnerability as well. In this interview, PCI SSC General Manager Bob Russo explains how his organization came into being, ...
The EC Settlement: Rambus, Writs and the Rule of Law
Silicon design company Rambus has sometimes lost, but always appealed, in the myriad private suits and public investigations brought against it - until now. The question is, what changed?
A New Voice for Open Source in Government
The U.S. federal agencies are already heavy users of open source software, despite the fact that there has never been a unified voice in Washington advocating for the uptake of free and open source software. This month, a new organization was launched to fill that void.
Digitization and the (Vanishing) Arts of the Book
Throughout the ages, monks, artists and graphic designers have lovingly illuminated and designed published works of all kinds. With electronic books finally taking hold, will the arts of the book be abandoned forever, or will a new generation of artists be allowed the bandwidth needed to enrich our future reading experience?