Blog: Where Security Meets Privacy

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Our technological capabilities are developing faster than are the laws that dictate how they can be used. There are also many gray areas that require a lot of deliberation.

eetasia.com, Jul. 03, 2019 – 

Since time immemorial, humans have been concerned with the subjects of security and privacy, but the convergence of many of today's technologies – especially in the form of the Internet of things (IoT) – mean that the stakes have never been higher. Already identity theft and ransomware attacks are rampant, with a worse-case scenario being a dystopian future in which "Big Brother" in the form of governments or mega-corporations observe and control our every move.

The more you have, the more you have to lose

If only we lived in a utopian society where people acted like... well, not people. Unfortunately, people are flawed. The problem with owning something is that there's always someone who would have no qualms with regard to taking it away from you.

The more you have, the worse things are. Pity the emperors, kings, and rulers of old who were unfortunate enough to acquire a stash of jewels, precious metals, and other prized objects, because their next problem was to protect their hoard. This meant they required custodians to prevent anyone from relieving them of their ill-gotten gains, but Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ("Who will guard the guards themselves?") as the old saying goes.

According to the History of Keys website, the first mechanical locks of which we are aware were created over 6,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, when locksmiths first managed to create simple but effective pin tumbler locks made entirely out of wood.

The next step was to use metal locks with evermore complex keys, combined – in some cases – by convoluted conundrums, such as those depicted in this video. Of course, two of the problems associated with locking something up are (a) keeping the key out of the hands of nefarious players and (b) making sure you don't lose the little rascal. As reported by MarketWatch.com, Customers of Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX ran into the latter issue when their fund manager passed away taking the password required to access their digital currency with him.

When the technologies that were to evolve into the internet were first conceived, the goal was to implement a robust communications system that would keep running, even if multiple parts of the network were incapacitated. It was also assumed that the network would be used by a small, trusted community who would have limited access to the network itself. For example, one report in the 1980s speculated that there might one day be as many as 3,000 users. The internet's creators never envisaged how it would evolve into the multi-billion-user behemoth we have today, and they had no concept of the security issues we would face, so security in our terms wasn't really considered.

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