Jamal Awil

← The Costs of Connection

Yet a more connected social world will not necessarily be more secure. [contrarian]

Yet a more connected social world will not necessarily be more secure. Indeed, there is no limit to the instability that an interconnected social order can generate. As Bruce Schneier argues, it is a fallacy to believe that more connection generates more security. On the contrary, since the possibilities of bad actors are infinite, more connection must generate more, not fewer, problems of security. The average security robustness of connected space tends to fall as more points get connected. Devices in the Internet of Things (such as those that control fridges or thermostats) simply lack the computing power to have their security repatched remotely, unlike, say, desktop or laptop computers. People cracking the code of baby monitors to speak to and scare children supposedly under digital protection are just graphic illustrations of a much deeper security problem, which in fact serves the interests of data extraction.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 123