Success, Failure, and Alternative Solutions for Network Security

The computer and network security fields have made little progress in the past decade. Why have our responses not solved our problems? The explanation that attacks are becoming ever more complicated and thus defenses are continually behind makes little sense when 10-year-old rootkits and well-known BGP and DNS attacks are still in force. Yes, it is still possible to take down the entire Internet.

This talk looks at the networked environment and its growth and at the inadequate responses of the Internet security industry. It then presents corollaries for environments in different academic disciplines and examines certain psychological situations that prohibit researchers and organizations from being able to address the problems. Finally, it suggests counterintelligence and counterespionage models and applies them to low-level network and systems communications.