{"id":1062,"date":"2014-03-15T20:57:07","date_gmt":"2014-03-16T02:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/?p=1062"},"modified":"2014-03-15T21:00:14","modified_gmt":"2014-03-16T03:00:14","slug":"security-as-a-public-health-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/?p=1062","title":{"rendered":"Security as a public health issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cory Doctorow writes<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s a good case to be made for security as an exercise in public health. It sounds weird at first, but the parallels are fascinating and deep and instructive.<\/p>\n

Last year, when I finished that talk in Seattle, a talk about all the ways that insecure computers put us all at risk, a woman in the audience put up her hand and said, \u201cWell, you\u2019ve scared the hell out of me. Now what do I do? How do I make my computers secure?\u201d<\/p>\n

And I had to answer: \u201cYou can\u2019t. No one of us can. I was a systems administrator 15 years ago. That means that I\u2019m barely qualified to plug in a WiFi router today. I can\u2019t make my devices secure and neither can you. Not when our governments are buying up information about flaws in our computers and weaponising them as part of their crime-fighting and anti-terrorism strategies. Not when it is illegal to tell people<\/a> if there are flaws in their computers, where such a disclosure might compromise someone\u2019s anti-copying strategy.<\/p>\n

But: If I had just stood here and spent an hour telling you about water-borne parasites; if I had told you about how inadequate water-treatment would put you and everyone you love at risk of horrifying illness and terrible, painful death; if I had explained that our very civilisation was at risk because the intelligence services were pursuing a strategy of keeping information about pathogens secret so they can weaponise them, knowing that no one is working on a cure; you would not ask me \u2018How can I purify the water coming out of my tap?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Because when it comes to public health, individual action only gets you so far. It doesn\u2019t matter how good your water is, if your neighbour\u2019s water gives him cholera, there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll get cholera, too. And even if you stay healthy, you\u2019re not going to have a very good time of it when everyone else in your country is striken and has taken to their beds.<\/p>\n

If you discovered that your government was hoarding information about water-borne parasites instead of trying to eradicate them; if you discovered that they were more interested in weaponising typhus than they were in curing it, you would demand that your government treat your water-supply with the gravitas and seriousness that it is due.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cory Doctorow writes: I think there\u2019s a good case to be made for security as an exercise in public health. It sounds weird at first, but the parallels are fascinating and deep and instructive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1064,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions\/1064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}