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This World of Ours - An Essay on Security

Accepted submission by AnonTechie at 2015-08-29 19:57:34
Security

This humourous essay [usenix.org] [PDF] on modern computer security, I thought would be an interesting read for SN ... an excerpt.

Security research is the continual process of dis-covering that your spaceship is a deathtrap. However, as John F. Kennedy once said, “SCREW IT WE’RE GOING TO THE MOON.” I cannot live my life in fear because someone named PhreakusMaximus at DefConHat 2014 showed that you can induce peanut allergies at a distance using an SMS message and a lock of your victim’s hair. If that’s how it is, I accept it and move on. Thinking about security is like thinking about where to ride your motorcycle: the safe places are no fun, and the fun places are not safe. I shall ride wherever my spirit takes me, and I shall find my Gigantic Martian Insect Party, and I will, uh, probably be rent asunder by huge cryptozoological man-dibles, but I will die like Thomas Jefferson: free, defiant, and without a security label.

[Also Covered By]: Schneier on Security [schneier.com]


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