Fear and security in early 21st century information systems

¶ … Security

The first 10 years the 21st century began a seemingly new age of terror and fear where heightened alert statuses and preventive measures can be seen as taken to extremes. The macrocosmic status of the global affairs which are often riddled with warfare, strife and suspicion can be examined at the microcosmic level within the information security and data protection industry. The purpose of this essay is to examine these questions: "How should we decide how secure we want our information to be? And who should be responsible to make these decisions? I'll answer these questions using ideas connecting the rationality of fear and security. Next I'll examine how materialism has distracted technology from its true essence, to help mankind. Lastly I will offer solutions to hopefully eliminate confusing and overbearing problems that humanity's quest for security can both effectively and efficiently have serious impact on that condition.

Fear and Security

It is essential to understand the causes for individuals, companies, organizations and all types of groupings need for a sense of security. In the Fact Forum Framework reading, a relationship between the known and unknown is graphically represented between two variables, cooperation and safety. What is impossible to know, could also be represented by fear, or ignorance. The balance between knowing and not knowing is represented as gray matter on this graph. This may also be interpreted as fear where a chasm is drawn to demonstrate the lack of conceptual understanding to grasp what is not known in the mysteries that can occur in everyday living.

Security needs rise from the sources of fear. Eliminating fear would eliminate the need for security in this type of relationship. The question is how is this done practically? Antonopoulos ( 2011) summed up an argument of a particular symptom of this problem, "the irony of all this of course is that rigid security rules do not make a company 'too secure 'or even 'more secure' than it used to be. A rigid set of security policies simply creates the illusion of security." It appears that the problem is at least being understood in a way where efficiency and simplicity are identified as being missing in these types of systems.

The need for computer and web security especially in e-business can now be understood in terms of fear. What are reasonable amounts of fear as a business owner, individual or any other type of person who desires to protect the information they have on their computers? Since all problems and solutions are relative to the individual organization or business, then adequate amounts of fear and the need for security should be relative as well. More is not always better in this case. Balancing and finding an equilibrium point where adequate amounts of resources are devoted to adequate amounts of problems. This can only be accomplished when self-analysis and critical thinking is applied to the problem at hand. Addressing the fear that is causing one to invest in this type of technology almost guarantees the correct amount of security will be applied and efficiency and rationality reemerge.

Suggested Solutions

After understanding and grasping the basic knowledge of the problem using self-analysis solutions may start to appear. Using both inductive and deductive reasoning skills towards this problem will help us try and qualify the necessary attributes to attain necessary and potential understanding. Simplifying and economizing efforts towards these types of issues helps in this process of learning how to improve. Solutions to these problems rest in a three-step plan:

1. Understand the Problem

2. Reason the Problem

3. Fix the Problem

Understand the problem involves investigating what types of programs may be deficient in any type of computer system. Finding out what each program does. Not skipping over information because it is too difficult. This involves discipline and hard work, but should pay off in developing ways to reason the problem on the path to a solution. Having a full understanding of how the computer talks to itself requires consistent and constant attention to detail while always trying to learn new skills and languages to communicate with these machines. Letting our scenery dictate the confines of the workplace seems to be representative of an imbalance somewhere within the workings of the organization or individual.

Reasoning the problem gathers all the information and data accumulated into a sustained and understandable package. Knowing what to apply, where to apply it and what is the best way to apply it becomes evident if this step is taken with earnest. Using both knowledge and human reasoning skills will no doubt aide the IT professional in fixing complicated problems. Once again throwing more technology at technology is not always solving the problem and the balance of human necessity and ease of use should probably be considered a greater aspect that it is seen in those types of systems.

Fixing the problem involves change. Fear and security depend on change, especially changes of the mind. Having a strong foundation, where fear is treated in respect and with balance, will once again serve the user of any such technology. Fixing the problem would involve putting into material world the ideas formulated in the second step. Avoiding an over dependence on materialism, however needs to be addressed in this stage. This can be done by continually maintaining and evaluating the current system as to how it corresponds and reflects principles and goals of the individual organization.