The Security State

1
The Security State

• Ross Anderson
• Cambridge University

2
Economics of Security

• Economics and security used to be intertwined but
  drifted apart after WW2
• Since about 2000, we started to apply economic
  analysis to IT security and dependability
• It explains many failures better! Systems often
  fail because the people who guard them dont
  suffer all the costs of attacks (e.g. medical
  record systems are bought by medical directors or
  civil servants, not patients)
• There are now over 100 researchers doing security
  economics

3
Economics of Security (2)

• There are many institutional effects! For
  example, big organizations spend too much on
  security, and small ones too little
• About 30 of private-sector systems projects
  fail, but despite greater risk aversion only
  30 of public-sector projects succeed!
• We observed during the crypto wars of the 1990s
  that GCHQ was much more interested in attacking
  foreigners than defending Brits. Why?

4
Offence or Defence?

• If you are DirNSA and have a nice new hack on XP
  and Vista, do you tell Bill?
• Tell protect 300m Americans
• Dont tell be able to hack 400m Europeans,
  1000m Chinese,
• If the Chinese hack US systems, they keep quiet.
  If you hack their systems, you can brag about it
  to the President
• So offence may be favoured over defence

5
Security Theatre

• Most security for show rather than effect
• For example, US government spent 14bn since 9/11
  on harassing airline passengers but failed to
  finish a 500m project to reinforce all cockpit
  doors!
• Where threats are greatly overblown, a theatrical
  response may be appropriate
• But the ones in current use are way too expensive!

6
Psychology and Security

• Security psychology research is also starting to
  get going
• Many interesting problems, including the privacy
  gap (why most people say they value privacy but
  act otherwise)
• But one of the biggest issues is fearmongering!
• Are modern societies structurally vulnerable to
  terrorism?

7
Psychology and Security (2)

• Why does terrorism work?
• Mortality salience (Pyszczynski et al)
• Heuristics and biases (Kahneman and Tversky)
  availability heuristic anchoring loss aversion
• Also wariness of hostile intent violation of
  moral sentiments credence given to images
  reaction against out-group sensitivity to change
• Gilbert If only gay sex caused global warming
• The good news biases affect novel events more,
  and so can be largely overcome by experience

8
Leadership Matters!

• Compare Thatchers response to the Brighton
  bombing with Blairs to 7/7
• For a systematic analysis, see John Muellers
  Overblown, which explores how politicians can
  hype national security threats, aided by
  suppliers and the media
• But its not inevitable Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon
  and Ford ignored terrorism
• It doesnt always work Bush got reelected but
  Carter didnt

9
Historical Precedents

• Cambridge University was founded in 1209 by monks
  fleeing Oxford
• See Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting
  Society for the background
• In late 12th century, the church started to exert
  power by cracking down on gays, lepers, Jews,
  married priests,
• This swung back and forth for centuries!

10
Summing Up

• Theres nothing mysterious, or even new, about
  the security state
• Lots of interests armed forces, spooks, cops,
  suppliers, media are happy to help a national
  leader scare up the vote
• They will gleefully spend too much, badly, on the
  wrong things
• Politics as a branch of showbusiness may have
  made us more vulnerable to this, for a while
• But the voters eventually wise up!

11
More

• See www.ross-anderson.com for a survey article
  and my security economics resource page
• See also the chapters on psychology and on
  terrorism from my book Security Engineering
  (2nd edition)
• WEIS Annual Workshop on Economics and
  Information Security Dartmouth, June 257 2008

12
(No Transcript)