Losing the Battle

Well, I like to think I fought the good fight. I mean, I’m an old fart. Old habits die hard, and for the longest time I just kept using the term I was used to, even though it was politically incorrect. After all, I held on to other ideas that I believed were morally superior, only to watch them get discredited by the new-think, by people that didn’t know what was right was right, and what was wrong was wrong.

Eventually, though, I caved. I started using the updated politically correct term. People no longer looked at me funny, they no longer made fun of the way that I talk. As for my discredited ideas, well, I kept them to myself, lest I be made fun of. After all, in today’s world, you have to use the right terms and speak the right way and think the right things.

Right?

But then, of course, a new term came in for what I previously knew. I resisted, because resistance is good. After all, the new term was, to put it bluntly, stupid. It was idiotic. It didn’t refer to what they said it referred. But I forgot my Star Trek. Resistance is futile.

OK, “cyber“. You win. I mean, HelpNet even says as much.

I grew up in an era when it was “Computer Security” and COMPUSEC, when we believed we could write multi-level secure systems that provided high assurance. What did we get for our efforts? perl, and a High Assurance Brake Job.

Then it became “Information Assurance” and “Information Security“. A1 systems? Sorry, but A1 was reserved for steak.  Multi-level systems? They were for special uses; no one would write a general purpose MLS operating system. Formal Methods? Never in your wildest dreams — that’s Gypsy talk. Ina know about you, but I need some Jo.

But now? We have Cybersecurity and Cyber and Trustworthiness. We’ve lost the war. Here’s what HelpNet has to say:

We have lost the cyber war. No, not that cyber war. Maybe war of words is a better way to put it. Whether we like it or not, cyber has become the default way for everyone else to talk about what we do.

[…]

It’s tempting to take the moral high ground and refuse to engage with cyber. Instead, we could choose to refer only to information security because we believe it accurately reflects both physical documents as well as digital assets, while giving importance to each one.

It’s fair to say that some of the industry’s suspicion about cyber comes from the fact that it’s broad enough to cover the charlatans in the industry who think there’s a buck to be made by scaring people into stocking up on silver bullets instead of informing them in a responsible way about how security can help them to do business better.

[…]

But if you open a dictionary, you’ll find cybersecurity is the only term of its kind. One survey ranked information security as the least popular term among the general public, even lower than e-security.

e-Security? Well, at least I can be thankful that term didn’t win.

e-Security? Sheeesh.