XplanaZine

One of the most interesting phenomenon to come out of this week’s DEMO 2003 show in Scottsdale, Arizona was the emphasis on security and just where that emphasis was placed.

At my last count, more than one third of the presentations at DEMO 2003 have been related to security. And to be certain, products from Sigma Security, PreventSys, and BigFix focused on network and preventative security. But the real emphasis has been on distributed security. Many other technologies and products introduced focused on “security” at the level of a single application or, even better, at the level of the individual user. The big winner? Probably the various anti-spam technologies debuted.

This shows us a couple of important things. First, there is money to be made in security. DEMO 2003 is a place where vendors show their new and upcoming wares in an effort to pick up early adopters and industry approval or buzz. When I say vendors, I’m talking about people who sell widgets for a living. No widgets sold, no money. These vendors are assiduous students of trends and they are constantly betting that they know what consumers want and will pay for. So, the fact that more than one third think there is good money to be made in security means there really might be a good chance that security will remain a profitable business in the immediate future.

Second, people feel more secure if they have some control over the situation (their own security). More and more products are being released that let the consumer adjust her/his own level of security or that augment the security measures already being taken by the user’s Network Administrator. We want our e-mail, we want to determine how we get our e-mail, what e-mail actually makes it to us, and we want to know that there are no “bombs” being delivered to our in boxes. Personally, I think that this is yet another in the long list of reasons that people prefer e-mail to snail mail. We just might have the chance to control it ourselves rather than rely on Big Brother to do it for us.

Finally, what security really means to us is that we can continue doing whatever it is that we prefer to do and whenever we want to do it. We don’t want to change our habits or activities. Rather, we want security built into applications that allows us to continue on our way, surfing the Internet, sending e-mail, videoconferencing, or sharing files with friends and colleagues. For people in the business of education, this emphasis on user-empowered security is important. It means that our precious learning interactions — e-mail with students, research data shared with colleagues — will not necessarily be placed in the hands of Network Administrators who have no idea really as to the importance of the data they are administering (working at a university can be like trusting your personal belongings to the security people at the airport — their view of our possessions is much too impersonal for our comfort). Instead, security can and will be pushed and distributed to smarter devices and to end users. Ultimately, that means more time connected and greater flexibility to use the Internet the way we want to.