This image is an excerpt from Microsoft senior security strategist Steve Riley’s “It’s 11:00 PM—Do You Know Where Your Data Is?” presentation at TechEd New Zealand. If you haven’t seen Steve present before, then this should give you a good idea of his style presentation.
I work for you. You’re paranoid.
You want me to update a document, but you’re terrified I will “steal” the information in that document somehow.
You secured your data against someone copying the contents. You don’t want it printed, so you’ve taken away my printer.
You’ve disabled the CD-Writer and the Floppy Disk drive.
You block USB pen-drives from being installed.
I’ve just taken a photograph of my screen, with your secret document open on the desktop.
Your move.
Unfortunately Steve doesn’t have a solution to this problem, yet.
Comments for "I work for you. You’re paranoid."
Koogle
hahah nice post.. paranoid people = stupid
Zack
Once again, I’m slightly perplexed. Can someone explain it to me? Sorry for being such a n00b :$
Zack
Does it mean that no matter how much you secure your system - TPM, EFS, BitLocker, and all these security tools… you can still take a photograph of the document on someone’s screen? *-)
Marco
of course - but isnt that obvious?
Long Zheng
@Zack: You’re thinking too much into it. This can mean several things. People will always try to get around security. There will always be flaws. Complex security systems can be compromised by primitive technology.
Simon
> Unfortunately Steve doesn’t have a solution to this problem, yet.
You mispelled “Fortunately”.
Seriously: Does not the fact that no authoritarian government, company, or organization has yet found a way to selectively prevent any and all ability to exchange information contribute to why 1984 *wasn’t* like 1984 (Steve Jobs’ jab at IBM nonwithstanding)? Would you really like to live in a world where governments have the ability to close the analogue hole?
Zim
If you say to a kid “don’t touch that”, you can be sure he’ll try to touch it. Is the same thing with security!
BenN
I believe that some of the more “paranoid” (or companies that really need to keep data secret) prevent cameras being taken into buildings as well. Of course, searching every employee for a camera isn’t a viable option for most companies, and the rise of mobile phones with cameras has made the whole task more difficult anyway.
Marco
@Long
thanks for this funny news
[off topic begins]
is it possible that you make a news about the performance of windows server 2008 and the implications of its kernel to vista? id love to read about that. i really wonder if that can improve vista’s performance.
ive tried windows server 2008 june build and i was amazed how responsive and quick it is. definately running better (in my personal opinion) than vista.
any chance?
[off topic ends]
Ajeet Khurana
Wasn’t it Andy Grove of Intel who wrote a book titled, “Only theParanoid Survive.” Though I agree with the cat-and-mouse game that this screen-shot (literally) implies. But, that is no reason to stop working on security.
Ceesar
Reminds me of when I was working in ASIC design, and we were evaluating a new processor to use in our chip.
The company (that I shall call company X) technical sales rep turned up in our office with a Sun workstation with the USB ports blocked off, no serial port, no parallel port, DVD and floppy drive removed, etc and the case padlocked shut with a steel cable … at which point he proudly proclaimed “we’ve got to protect our intellectual property, let’s see you get information off that machine”, with a big smile on his face.
One of my team then piped up - “that’s fine, we’ll just take a digital photo of the source code being displayed on the nice monitor you provided, then run it through optical character recognition”.
The sales rep smile faded. Fast.
Lesson of the day - never EVER throw do a gauntlet like that to an office full of engineers.
Zack
@Long - makes sense now
Thanks!
Leopard
Does anyone here realize that taking a snap of the screen with a camera overrides all security technologies? This includes TPM, BitLocker, EFS, IRS, “Vista Ultimate Security”, etc.
Oops, I nearly forgot that human memory overrides these too
Jono
Indeed - in fact here in Australia people who work in any government department that require any kind of security clearance (more than you’d think do) have to leave their camera phones at the front desk.
Tomer Chachamu
Very few places have that security and /don’t/ check for cameras.
PL
The technologies metioned are digital protections in the digital world, they are for protecting documents from being copied and read by those that are not authorized.
Taking a picture does not void these technologies, taking a picture requires you to be physically on location in front of someones open desktop that is displaying the supposedly protected document.
If someone can gain access that way then you have a whole other problem and you really need to get some locks for your office, or just put a password on you screensaver and maybe even a security guard for your building.
Although, if they can gain access that way they can jsut steal your harddrive or the whole computer instead.
JoH
Foo. The issue is trust. And trust is a a social issue. Social issues cannot be solved through technology. And as such, interpersonal trust cannot be replaced by technology.
Sure, you can can have your emplyoees make surveye each other and foster a climate of ultimate distrust, but at which price? And who watches the watchers?
Quintessence: If I do not trust my employee enough to keep NDA information confidential, then I should not trust them with such tasks. Tough call, welcome to the reallife.
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