Eons ago when John was still around (he still is, dont ask me why hes still around Im as clueless) computing power constituted a 286, 32MB RAM, a few hundred MBs storage purely for storing text files, running 3.1 OS coupled by a dial-up connection just for him to check up on (via command line email) Einstein, Graham Bell et al. s latest inventions. And if he needed to move files around, he would typically use a 5.1 floppy disk (that thing is the same size as a slice of bread, they still have them in museums I believe). Back then, to the Johns of that world the web was to spiders in the same way as python is to what it is; a dangerous snake. They used to call daemons what we currently refer to as services, hence server get it? Ill credit John for being among the first few fire inventors and most importantly educating the masses that, that thing that hangs off an elephants face is actually a pair of nostrils. With that being said, Johns security concerns were equally as minimalistic. All he needed was a few lines of IP chains config to secure his network, no need for an anti-virus as at the time even McAfee the man wasnt born yet. All this and the day would be safe thanks to power puff John. Fast forward into the future. Now John has a smart phone, powered by a dual core cpu, a gig of RAM, couple gigs storage taking the form of mem cards, the works. He also gets to the internet via a 4G connection. These specs would make a server of his time quit its job. In the current (Johns future) times, what we have in our hands, pockets, clutch bags is unimaginable computing capabilities both hardware and software. Android for instance is a scaled down version of commonly used Linux distributions. What this means in reality is, other than making phone calls, we can type in our physical addresses and trust that the phone will get us to our destinations, have firms like ADT setup our home-security and have us monitor everything at the palm of our hands, and we can also bank on the go and what not. Obviously all this techno-mumbo jumbo has its flaws, and steep ones at that; First off the devices themselves are not cheap, then we have to deal with the headaches of patching them as theyre often as buggy as ever (anyone who found themselves installing iOS 7 can relate), finally and most importantly their security or insecurity concerns. Think of it this way, youve just armed your house, tweeted that you just got a raise, and moved a couple thousands bucks from your current to your savings account. What would happen if the bad guys compromised your phone? This brings me to my point. In the foreseeable future, theres a high chance that folks will start carrying mobile security appliances (think next generation firewalls, intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems etc) to protect their mobile computing. I know this sounds a tad bit farfetched but I somewhat trust my gut on this one. Just like John, they started with anti-virus software, which youre already running on your phones, advanced to firewalls (where youre heading to) soon after they developed a whole market segment fully dedicated to secure computing. It will soon get to that point where, well no longer trust that umbrella security offered by our providers since the same carrier extends services to the bad guys right? (there goes my business idea :-), like I had one to begin with ) If Snowden is anything to go by that is. Granted, at what extent will we be willing to go just so as to protect what we deem private? Pocket firewalls maybe? John my fault, youre a reference point because you keep mentioning IT jargon from the past, stuff I can hardly fathom. Just dont bash :-).
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 09:01:05 +0000
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