On 16 Jun 2009 18:41:32 -0700, [email protected] (Rick Fochtman) wrote: >There's a very fine line between security and paranoia; when do we >decide that it's been crossed?
The enemy's definition is when we do what they want. (bin Laden had a hope that we would attack Saudi Arabia, but was delighted nevertheless that we attacked Iran). But in data processing, we have different concerns. The enemy is often criminals who are wanting to find flaws in our privacy and security processes. Virus checkers on PCs, policies to not download sensitive data to PCs, and fire walls are no longer paranoia. Complicated security procedures making sure that people can't screen scrape data that they are not authorized for are no longer paranoia. Technology has made it so that even mainframes aren't immune to the need for safe security practices. And in the non-mainframe shops, the percentage of people working on infrastructure and security is way up over what we have been used to. A lot fewer people are available for productive programming for the users. That is necessary because of vulnerabilities that professional thieves exploit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
