Cybersecurity: the paradigm shifts
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 12:03AM 
Intel wants to be inside of everything, so sayeth Bloomberg Businessweek. The PC market for chips is only so big and it's slowing, which the market for embedded chips, while smaller for now, will grow dramatically.
So Intel's purchase of MacAfee, the software security firm, is viewed as a shot across the IT's industry's bow, suggesting that cybersecurity concerns are going to move far beyond the world of computers and the internet to something far more pervasive. Thus devices with embedded chips will need embedded software on those chips and embedded security software within that software.
How you think of cybersecurity in terms of firewalls in such a world is beyond me. Cisco speaks more and more of "borderless security"--a trend that I think favors the horizontal systems of the world (like the United States) far more than the vertical ones (like China). I mean, how can a society with low social trust prevail in such a world?
Reader Comments (2)
The idea that you can achieve security with these kinds of add-on/plug-in band-aids is just dumb. One reason the Mac is a lot more secure is better design. Unless Intel plans to get into the Operating System business, security is still a place where the OS rules. And I think Intel would get into a lot of trouble if it moves into Operating Systems, both from companies that have these products and from governments over anti-trust or even "Great Firewall of China" kinds of concerns.
My concern is this will continue the trend towards more and more restrictive "IT approaches", which will stifle both innovation and productivity. This is not a good thing for the US or other knowledge-enabled economies, although it may well allow emerging economies to catch up due to the hobbles placed on IT usage.
The "Great Fire Wall." So to speak.