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Knol

The Technical Realm

Computers and computer networks extend across a broad plane of cost and capability. Some work for us, the individual users, while others often treat us as resources under their purview. We have observed that personal electronic devices are iconic examples of systems that work on our behalf. The implication is that such systems are small and inexpensive enough to allow their ubiquitous deployment; essentially every person can have at least one, but perhaps several. Be they called e-mail communicator, mobile phone, personal assistant, ultra-portable computer, key fob or credit card with a chip, they are meant to always be on the person of their bearer. They contain bearer-related information of importance whose protection is assumed by both the person owning the device and the institutions in communication with the device. For example, the account information in the mobile phone is private and is used to appropriately charge communications. Another example is the personal information allowing employees to link to their company network. Certainly the employee and the company count on it to be protected. Finally, yet another example is the information on the chip of a credit card. It actually represents money, always a target for theft. Most important, however, is the ability of the computer to establish and vouch for the unique identity of the computer bearer. It is through this ability to establish and convey identity in a highly trusted fashion that such computers truly become the conveyors of policy in the modern world.

What we plan to explore in this book is a required set of characteristics of personal electronic devices that allow them to function as our representatives within the cyber-world. From our perspective, the optimal such computer does not yet exist. However, personal devices that deal with important private information have at their core a security system. The actual security varies considerably from device to device. The core security mechanisms range from barely protected software keys to specialized hardware called a trusted module whose purpose is to encompass dedicated security circuitry or even specialized processors. If the optimal private computer is the culmination stepping stone of the evolution of private, personal, secure computational facilities, then the trusted module is perhaps the emergent species of this family. The size of a match head, a trusted module is oriented from its design onward toward being a secure token for the individual being. As such, it is an excellent kicking off point as we consider the connection between computer systems in general and the social structure of human groups.

Personal electronic devices are at the forefront of an emerging technological infrastructure within which people live and work. The infrastructure offers us every increasing levels of service and yet we find ourselves at an increasing disadvantage as we try to exist comfortably within it because of its extent, speed and complexity. We desire it, or are required to make use of it, but we often do so at our peril because of these factors. Certainly, few among us are completely comfortable in engaging in complex transactions with faceless, nameless and anonymous entities that exist in the amorphous cyberspace that defines much of our current world. Our physical environment is similarly suspect. Often we find ourselves quite uncomfortable with the presence of strangers in certain venues of our lives. Yet, we must interact with the ill known and the unseen; it is the way of our existence.

Within the various computers on the network, the spread of viruses, worms, Trojan Horse and other malevolent diseases threaten the health of the entire infrastructure. If one has an e-mail address that’s been around for a decade or so, it is likely that it is on so many spam lists as to render it incapable of conveying useful information. When one out of a hundred messages is actually good, the channel is of little use. Of almost equal concern is the economic paradigm of the infrastructure, driven largely by advertising. Trying to read a body of information while seeing

Book available at Midori Press (regular)
Book available at Midori Press (signed)
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