RE: Forrester Research foresees death of firewalls

[sean.kelly () lanston com]

> From: SMITH, Michael @Ottawa [mailto:msmith () shl com]
> Subject: Forrester Research foresees death of firewalls 
>
>
> The proposed rules of Inverted Security are: foster openness, shun
> complexity, share responsibility, and emphasize 
> accountability.  On this
> last point, the report notes, "Real-world business 
> relationships are built
> on trust backed by accountability, not prevention."

Perhaps, but real-world business relationships are not built with every
human who potentially has access to systems that would otherwise have been
protected by a firewall.  Further, perfect accountability may facilitate a
victory in court after data loss or a system failure but it won't get the
compromised systems up and running any faster so the business can get back
to work.  Unless there's some kind of fundamental shift in the nature of
humanity or computing, some security will continue to be better than no
security at all.

In another place I noticed that the writer mentioned security at the
application level as opposed to the subnet level.  While this is something
that is already done, and could certainly be improved using public key
systems and the like (his accountability to a degree), there are still
advantages to keeping john doe out of a subnet entirely.

Sean