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Pastimes : Internet Security/Privacy Issues and Solutions

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To: caly who started this subject9/27/2001 9:03:30 PM
From: PJ Strifas  Read Replies (1) of 210
 
Broader surveillance won't prevent terrorism -Schneier
By John Leyden
Posted: 26/09/2001 at 14:31 GMT

The clamour for the introduction of wider surveillance
measures has been deafening in the wake of the
September 11 terror attacks.

To date, opponents against such moves have argued
mostly for civil liberties reasons. But the case against
can also be made on the grounds that more
surveillance simply won't work.

That's the analysis of Bruce Schneier, founder and
chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet
Security, who says the failure to anticipate the
September 11 attacks was one of data
interpretation, not data collection.

Speaking today at the Information Security Solution
Europe conference in London, Schneier drew
parallels between Internet security and physical
security to make his point that more widespread
monitoring is in itself unlikely to prevent terrorism.

"You can either build a system right or build it wrong
and watch everybody," said Schneier. "Broad
surveillance is generally the sign of a badly designed
system of security."

Instead of relying on collecting more data (signals
intelligence), counter terrorism agencies should put
more effort into human intelligence.

"The Stasi collected data on four million East
Germans, roughly one fourth of their population. Yet
they failed to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall
because they invested too heavily in data collection
and too little in data interpretation and human
intelligence," Schneier argued.

He said it was possible to increase security without
taking away privacy and liberty and encouraged
people to look for real answers to the problem of
terrorism, which he admitted was far from
straightforward. He suggested combing prevention,
detection, and response to achieve something
approaching robust and resilient security was the
best we could hope for.

There's a chance to redesign our "public
infrastructures for security", according to Schneier.
We wonder if this root-and-branch option will be
adopted. reg;

theregister.co.uk
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