Network Security vs. Elegant Technology

 

Networking has always been a communications tool used by friends, associates and acquaintances.  Enter Al Gore’s invention, The Internet.  No, Al Gore did not invent the internet and it is not just a piece of technology.  The Internet evolved from something called the ARPA net.  ARPA net was created so that military computers could talk to one another and the information available in one machine could be shared in other locations.  The ARPA net was found to have other applications which made the network very useful and eventually more popular than it had been.  So, the concept of a network as used in human terms was extended to computers.

 

The ARPA net used the old AT&T telephone network in order to transmit its information to various other computers.  Note that another technology network was being used to host the ARPA net.  The AT&T network started out as an electro mechanical web of wires and relays that took the human voice and converted it to an analog or electrical signal analogous to the real human voice.  This network was okay for speech, but it would not allow other signals to pass through and maintain their integrity.  So the telephone network evolved to an electronic network that replaced its relays with transistors.  The introduction of electronics made the network continuous so that electrical signals could be synthesized or duplicated in the network more easily.  This was a major step in communications technology because not only was the system more efficient, it was faster and it acted like a giant computer.  However, one major drawback was the limitation on its speed.  There were definite ceilings on the speed that signals could move through the network.

 

In order to address the problem of latency in the network, the digital network was developed.  The fourth or fifth generation of the digital network is what we have right now.  Digital technology is what allows us to have an internet with virtual access ports and very fast communication.  This technology is so fast today that there is literally no signal format that cannot use the transport scheme.   With each generation of the network, the architecture or the switching fabric became more open.  The electro-mechanical was the most secure because of its limitations..  AT& T had devised a number of devices that monitored how subscribers used their access to the network.  They had a special security team that could pin point the location of any illegal user in a matter of minutes with great accuracy.

 

The electronic network was much more agile and it too had an efficient security team monitoring subscriber access.  Although this network was so much greater than its predecessor, it was less effective at catching pirates.  This was because pirating technology became more sophisticated.  So, now AT&T was chasing more sophisticated criminals.

 

And now Internet Protocol or IP switching has a truly open architecture with many layers and quality of service. The openness allows every ‘server’ its own independence and a virtual omnipresence that is addressable.  Okay, okay.  So much for the technical mumbo jumbo. What I’m leading up to is the fact that if someone wants to mislead you on the internet, more than likely they can.  Banks and private industry users are reporting billions of dollars lost annually while encouraging us to complete more transactions on line.  Although if the internet is good enough for your banks’ ATM. It should be good enough for us.  That’s right; access to your money at an ATM is done via the internet.  No need to worry, that’s why there are firewalls and network security,.

 

At this time we can come to see the network as the people, the medium and the facility.  It may also be your business platform that you want to carry throughout the world with billions of transactions each and every year.  Well, how much of that business are you ready to sacrifice.  Invariably,  the irony is the better you become at building your personal network, the more vulnerable you become to piracy and hacking.  The answer is to sell items with the real value out of range or transferred to another more secure venue.

 

What are some of the secure practices that you have put into place to keep your network, your customers and your money safe?