Re: emergent security properties

[Pavel Kankovsky <peak () argo troja mff cuni cz>]

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006, Nguyen Pham wrote:

> The problem is that I can hardly find out some real examples in the
> field of network security in terms of sub-networks, firewalls, servers,
> applications, etc. with their corresponding security properties.

A trivial emergent loss of security: You have some persons and every
person is operating his or her own personal computer. No person has
physical access to anyone else's computer. As long as the computers are
isolated, the system can be quite secure even if in the presence of
various security holes in software and hardware. The only person who can
exploit them is (via) the owner of the computer. Connect all those
computers to a network and... (Any similarity to any existing global
network is purely coincidental.)

I am afraid it will be pretty difficult to find an example where the
security increases with complexity. Perhaps some Byzantine
"security-breach tolerant" systems?


--Pavel Kankovsky aka Peak  [ Boycott Microsoft--http://www.vcnet.com/bms ]
"Resistance is futile. Open your source code and prepare for assimilation."

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