[ExI] Security 2001 (was Re: [wta-talk] Christian Transhumanist Declaration)

[Harvey Newstrom]

John Grigg wrote,
> Harvey is an awesome guy.  I will never forget how he scared the
> daylights out of the Extro 5 conference crowd by sharing in his talk
> just how vulnerable their computers really were to hacking!  LOL

Yeah, that was fun.

You know, I got a lot of condemnation for that speech.  Some thought it was 
good and accurate.  But most people thought I was outrageously overhyping 
the issues as a scare tactic for my career.  Believe it or not, most people 
simply did not believe that corporations were profiling and tracking 
customers, that governments had routine domestic spying programs, or that 
hacking would turn into big business with advertising and information 
brokering.  This all seems obvious to us to day, and did to security 
professionals back then, but the general public as still mostly oblivious.

Here were my concluding "future predictions" from that speech in 2001:

- Privacy will become as big a concern as Security, maybe bigger
- While companies hide security incidents, individuals will not hide privacy 
concerns
- After SpyWare and Anti-SpyWare, look for Anti-Anti-SpyWare
- Corporations will start using viruses to spread more SpyWare without 
permission
- Governments will start using viruses as well
- Software will be designed to break if SpyWare features are disrupted or 
regular reports are not received
- Companies and Government will increase surveillance and hide surveillance 
where it is deemed illegal
- Beyond spying without permission, companies will start taking actions or 
making contracts "for" the customer without permission
- Company databases of customer information will become preferred targets of 
hackers rather than the individuals themselves
- Companies will escalate industrial espionage programs to steal customer 
data from each other
- Individuals will resort to data poisoning and sabotage if they cannot get 
their information removed from corporate databases
- Companies will increase legal actions against security consultants who 
report these events
- Expect more deception, more conflict, and all-out war . . .

--
Harvey Newstrom <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP