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OPINION:
Schwartau Takes on Kaspersky
Over Next Generation Security Assertions
By
Winn Schwartau, Chairman of M.A.D. Partners, LLC
Eugene Kaspersky is incredibly wrong on several of his recent
headline-grabbing assertions. So help me, he is.
First, as reported on 19 March 2010 by SC Magazine, he said, “a move
towards smart phone devices will see computer security disappear
along with viruses and criminals.” He added that, “1TB is more than
what we need…3D [graphics] is the end.”
Wow, how wrong can you be? The move to smart phones is producing
exactly the opposite results: iPhones, iPads and other smart phone
have already been rooted, Trojan’d and according to a July 2009
study, 3% of smart phone are already infected with some form of
unwanted software. A global audience of a few hundred million that
will expand to a couple of billion unsophisticated users is a
cybercriminal’s dream victim demographic.
I asked Congress a number of years ago, “for what reason would the
bad guys NOT use the Internet as a weapon?” They demurred and we
see what has happened.
Today, I see no rational argument that highly organized, motivated
and skilled cybercriminal will choose to idly sit back and ignore the
most fertile hunting ground imaginable; dumb users. Is there any
evidence to the contrary supporting Mr. Kaspserky’s view? I submit
not. Further I submit that his short-sided views of future RAM, CPU
and bandwidth requirements are also in fundamental error.
3D is the maximum imaginable requirement of the user? 1080p is as
far as we can go? Absolutely not. Laboratories are playing with
complete sensory immersion, brain-computer links, instantaneous
squid-like feedback, and holodeck simulations. A visit to the MIT Media
Lab or Santa Fe Institute clearly demonstrates that there is no logical
upper limit of requisite computing resources for the Enterprise or the
Consumer.
My second disagreement is with Mr. Kaspersky’s 28 April 2010
statement at Infosec, UK, that the currently heterogeneous
population of competing smart phone platforms is predestined to
collapse into a noncompetitive homogenous blob. His only argument is
that open-source approaches such as with Android and Symbian will
last more than five years, while iPhone, Blackberry and Windows
Mobile, “closed systems” are pre-ordained for failure.
A little history. IBM dominated the first computing monoculture
(homogeneity) with the mainframe. “You can’t get fired for buying
IBM,” was a topical C.Y.A. mantra that survived long into Microsoft
homogenized takeover of the desktop environment.
The homogeneous monoculture of the mainframe era and the last
thirty years of Windows was a byproduct of corporate entrenchment
and the simplicity of single vendor integration, standardization and
deployment, (albeit questionable from a security viewpoint).
The smart phone era has been unpredictably chaotic, in a good way.
The projected four billion mobile endpoints (2013-4) are not being
driven by a controlled corporate culture. Smart phone purchases are
dictated by a whimsical and capricious, transnational and cross-
cultural buying public who knows no allegiance. (Mac and iPhone fans
notwithstanding.) Their obvious fickleness is exploited by carriers who
offer a dizzying array of hardware platforms, multiple operating
environments and now, suites of applications.
In this truly heterogeneous market, the user cares about tweeting,
texting, facebooking, surfing, snapping megapixel pictures and
sharing their videos with others. In the Web 2.0+ world, the OS and
the hardware are completely incidental to the interoperability and
compatibility of functionality… not the underpinning technology. Oh,
and does it come in pink?
So, Mr. Kaspersky, will the iPhone or iPad of 2015 project holographic
images of aging baby boomers to their descendants? Maybe. But I
would also lay odds it would do so with Apple tightly managing its
kernel controlled pre-emptive multi-tasking OS. Will Android offer a
competing open-source application? Yup. And so will Symbian and
Microsoft and it will eat up gobs of computing resources and
bandwidth, too.
Fundamentally, sir, there is no end to innovation, no end to computing
power requirements and no end to the demands of the multi-
immersive consumer.
And that brings up the third of Mr. Kaspersky’s triumverate of
misstatements. In his 11 March 2010 interview with PC Pro, he
claimed that Apple is blocking third party security software on the
iPhone.
That claim is simply not true. Mobile Active Defense was completely
reviewed, vetted, stapled, folded and ultimately approved by Apple for
iPhone and iPad security. The complete Enterprise Compliance Edition
is to soon follow. All this prior to his interview.
Our job, I submit, is to invisibly protect two billions users from
themselves and the hostiles while they enjoy the fruits of the
technology that they cannot nor should not be expected to
understand.
Winn Schwartau is chairman of M.A.D. Partners, LLC. The opinions
published in the column are his and do not necessarily represent the
views held by the editors of BizTechReports.Com. For more information
on Winn visit: www.MobileActiveDefense.Com
BizTechReports.Com welcomes the submission of rebuttals or alternate
opinions...simply contact the editors at 1.888.516.4306 or send a
message to editor@biztechreports.com.
Schwartau Takes on Kaspersky
Over Next Generation Security Assertions
By
Winn Schwartau, Chairman of M.A.D. Partners, LLC
Eugene Kaspersky is incredibly wrong on several of his recent
headline-grabbing assertions. So help me, he is.
First, as reported on 19 March 2010 by SC Magazine, he said, “a move
towards smart phone devices will see computer security disappear
along with viruses and criminals.” He added that, “1TB is more than
what we need…3D [graphics] is the end.”
Wow, how wrong can you be? The move to smart phones is producing
exactly the opposite results: iPhones, iPads and other smart phone
have already been rooted, Trojan’d and according to a July 2009
study, 3% of smart phone are already infected with some form of
unwanted software. A global audience of a few hundred million that
will expand to a couple of billion unsophisticated users is a
cybercriminal’s dream victim demographic.
I asked Congress a number of years ago, “for what reason would the
bad guys NOT use the Internet as a weapon?” They demurred and we
see what has happened.
Today, I see no rational argument that highly organized, motivated
and skilled cybercriminal will choose to idly sit back and ignore the
most fertile hunting ground imaginable; dumb users. Is there any
evidence to the contrary supporting Mr. Kaspserky’s view? I submit
not. Further I submit that his short-sided views of future RAM, CPU
and bandwidth requirements are also in fundamental error.
3D is the maximum imaginable requirement of the user? 1080p is as
far as we can go? Absolutely not. Laboratories are playing with
complete sensory immersion, brain-computer links, instantaneous
squid-like feedback, and holodeck simulations. A visit to the MIT Media
Lab or Santa Fe Institute clearly demonstrates that there is no logical
upper limit of requisite computing resources for the Enterprise or the
Consumer.
My second disagreement is with Mr. Kaspersky’s 28 April 2010
statement at Infosec, UK, that the currently heterogeneous
population of competing smart phone platforms is predestined to
collapse into a noncompetitive homogenous blob. His only argument is
that open-source approaches such as with Android and Symbian will
last more than five years, while iPhone, Blackberry and Windows
Mobile, “closed systems” are pre-ordained for failure.
A little history. IBM dominated the first computing monoculture
(homogeneity) with the mainframe. “You can’t get fired for buying
IBM,” was a topical C.Y.A. mantra that survived long into Microsoft
homogenized takeover of the desktop environment.
The homogeneous monoculture of the mainframe era and the last
thirty years of Windows was a byproduct of corporate entrenchment
and the simplicity of single vendor integration, standardization and
deployment, (albeit questionable from a security viewpoint).
The smart phone era has been unpredictably chaotic, in a good way.
The projected four billion mobile endpoints (2013-4) are not being
driven by a controlled corporate culture. Smart phone purchases are
dictated by a whimsical and capricious, transnational and cross-
cultural buying public who knows no allegiance. (Mac and iPhone fans
notwithstanding.) Their obvious fickleness is exploited by carriers who
offer a dizzying array of hardware platforms, multiple operating
environments and now, suites of applications.
In this truly heterogeneous market, the user cares about tweeting,
texting, facebooking, surfing, snapping megapixel pictures and
sharing their videos with others. In the Web 2.0+ world, the OS and
the hardware are completely incidental to the interoperability and
compatibility of functionality… not the underpinning technology. Oh,
and does it come in pink?
So, Mr. Kaspersky, will the iPhone or iPad of 2015 project holographic
images of aging baby boomers to their descendants? Maybe. But I
would also lay odds it would do so with Apple tightly managing its
kernel controlled pre-emptive multi-tasking OS. Will Android offer a
competing open-source application? Yup. And so will Symbian and
Microsoft and it will eat up gobs of computing resources and
bandwidth, too.
Fundamentally, sir, there is no end to innovation, no end to computing
power requirements and no end to the demands of the multi-
immersive consumer.
And that brings up the third of Mr. Kaspersky’s triumverate of
misstatements. In his 11 March 2010 interview with PC Pro, he
claimed that Apple is blocking third party security software on the
iPhone.
That claim is simply not true. Mobile Active Defense was completely
reviewed, vetted, stapled, folded and ultimately approved by Apple for
iPhone and iPad security. The complete Enterprise Compliance Edition
is to soon follow. All this prior to his interview.
Our job, I submit, is to invisibly protect two billions users from
themselves and the hostiles while they enjoy the fruits of the
technology that they cannot nor should not be expected to
understand.
Winn Schwartau is chairman of M.A.D. Partners, LLC. The opinions
published in the column are his and do not necessarily represent the
views held by the editors of BizTechReports.Com. For more information
on Winn visit: www.MobileActiveDefense.Com
BizTechReports.Com welcomes the submission of rebuttals or alternate
opinions...simply contact the editors at 1.888.516.4306 or send a
message to editor@biztechreports.com.
BizTechReports.Com
| BizTechReports.Com 1.888.516.4306 editor@biztechreports.com |
