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Part of the issue is not redundancy, but heterogeny. It is like monoculture crops - doesn't matter if you're growing 4x what you need if something comes along t

by __jal 9y ago

Part of the issue is not redundancy, but heterogeny. It is like monoculture crops - doesn't matter if you're growing 4x what you need if something comes along that kills all of them. > If a piece of software gets corrupted, you load from backups or buy a new copy Software is cheap, as you say. Data isn't. The piece's author indicated that the influenza-of-the-month was launched via tax software, which generally isn't interoperable. If there is no reasonable replacement, what do you do? Heterogeneous systems are more expensive to operate, require more expertise, and cause more compatibility problems than monocultures. But they also don't all die at once due to the same bug.

DamonHD 9y ago
Ah, suddenly I feel all my 1337 cross-platform skilz could remain useful. I do like standards, but I absolutely do not like monoculture implementations, particularly when they have often been crappy (eg 90% of Microsoft API calls NOT behaving as the little-if-any docs suggest, as used to be my experience).
scottLobster 9y ago
The same thing you do if physical tax/medical/financial records get lost in a fire, or any other data for that matter. It's a major loss, maybe even an economic crisis for some, but not an unrecoverable one. Worst case scenario you move foreword with less data and insurance does what it can. Create countermeasures so it doesn't happen again. Said data should also be backed up for this very reason. Also, just because devices are on the same network does not mean they're homogenous. A Windows vulnerability won't take out a Linux server or an IoT webcam. For everything to truly "die at once due to the same bug" you'd need a network layer attack. Compromising the internet protocol itself, even if possible would cut off the attacker as well, so that leaves us with denial of service attacks, which are common. But services like Cloudflare already effectively defend against such attacks, and even compromising an entire major cloud platform (as in the author's AWS hypothetical) will simply result in the cloud provider as well as other interested parties pouring all possible effort into fixing the problem as quickly as possible. Imagine that your monoculture crop could develop immunity to a new disease within hours, days or weeks, with immunity developing faster for more serious diseases. Then all you need is a big enough field to absorb any potential losses.
- __jal 9y ago
  > Worst case scenario you move foreword with less data and insurance does what it can Well, yes. Just like, after a house fire, you rebuild and try to carry on. It is still catastrophic. > Also, just because devices are on the same network does not mean they're homogenous. Of course not. The point is that there are many pressures towards running homogenous systems - easier to hire for, easier to manage, fewer support systems to run, fewer interop problems, bigger vendor discounts, etc. etc. These pressures are hard to resist, but we have to do better at running heterogenous systems, because without them, your entire farm can burn down before you notice. Nothing you say is wrong, but just because "it's just software" doesn't mean these aren't catastrophes.
  - scottLobster 9y ago
    Not saying they're not, but the author specifically mentions "existential threat", "paralyzed economies", and worlds where people without technical skills are instantly hacked upon connecting to the internet. He uses the example of water supply so completely poisoned that no one can drink from it. The author seems to be making an assumption that we could enter a world where insecure technology could be taken offline all at once by some random hacker(s) and remain in such a state long enough to completely destroy economies and institutions. Frankly the system just isn't that brittle, if it was it would have failed long ago. It's like looking at Hurricane Katrina, which while catastrophic was never an existential threat to the US, and saying, "now imagine if Hurricane Katrina happened everywhere, every day!" without considering if such a thing were possible or likely in the first place. As for heterogeneous systems, what do you think the cloud is? Sure it may be homogenous for users, but that's all abstraction for what is a VERY heterogeneous system under the hood. Sure having independent/redundant subsystems is ideal for reliability, but at the end of the day I don't see the need for all the frightful abstractions. The farm isn't going to burn down without anyone noticing, there are simply too many powerful interested parties and too much built-in resiliency. I'm all for building in more resiliency/redundancy to prevent catastrophes as you mention, but the author takes a couple of major security incidents and spins them into apocalyptic techno-panic.
- digi_owl 9y ago

by __jal 9y ago

DamonHD 9y ago

Ah, suddenly I feel all my 1337 cross-platform skilz could remain useful. I do like standards, but I absolutely do not like monoculture implementations, particularly when they have often been crappy (eg 90% of Microsoft API calls NOT behaving as the little-if-any docs suggest, as used to be my experience).

scottLobster 9y ago

The same thing you do if physical tax/medical/financial records get lost in a fire, or any other data for that matter. It's a major loss, maybe even an economic crisis for some, but not an unrecoverable one. Worst case scenario you move foreword with less data and insurance does what it can. Create countermeasures so it doesn't happen again. Said data should also be backed up for this very reason. Also, just because devices are on the same network does not mean they're homogenous. A Windows vulnerability won't take out a Linux server or an IoT webcam. For everything to truly "die at once due to the same bug" you'd need a network layer attack. Compromising the internet protocol itself, even if possible would cut off the attacker as well, so that leaves us with denial of service attacks, which are common. But services like Cloudflare already effectively defend against such attacks, and even compromising an entire major cloud platform (as in the author's AWS hypothetical) will simply result in the cloud provider as well as other interested parties pouring all possible effort into fixing the problem as quickly as possible. Imagine that your monoculture crop could develop immunity to a new disease within hours, days or weeks, with immunity developing faster for more serious diseases. Then all you need is a big enough field to absorb any potential losses.

__jal 9y ago
> Worst case scenario you move foreword with less data and insurance does what it can Well, yes. Just like, after a house fire, you rebuild and try to carry on. It is still catastrophic. > Also, just because devices are on the same network does not mean they're homogenous. Of course not. The point is that there are many pressures towards running homogenous systems - easier to hire for, easier to manage, fewer support systems to run, fewer interop problems, bigger vendor discounts, etc. etc. These pressures are hard to resist, but we have to do better at running heterogenous systems, because without them, your entire farm can burn down before you notice. Nothing you say is wrong, but just because "it's just software" doesn't mean these aren't catastrophes.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  Not saying they're not, but the author specifically mentions "existential threat", "paralyzed economies", and worlds where people without technical skills are instantly hacked upon connecting to the internet. He uses the example of water supply so completely poisoned that no one can drink from it. The author seems to be making an assumption that we could enter a world where insecure technology could be taken offline all at once by some random hacker(s) and remain in such a state long enough to completely destroy economies and institutions. Frankly the system just isn't that brittle, if it was it would have failed long ago. It's like looking at Hurricane Katrina, which while catastrophic was never an existential threat to the US, and saying, "now imagine if Hurricane Katrina happened everywhere, every day!" without considering if such a thing were possible or likely in the first place. As for heterogeneous systems, what do you think the cloud is? Sure it may be homogenous for users, but that's all abstraction for what is a VERY heterogeneous system under the hood. Sure having independent/redundant subsystems is ideal for reliability, but at the end of the day I don't see the need for all the frightful abstractions. The farm isn't going to burn down without anyone noticing, there are simply too many powerful interested parties and too much built-in resiliency. I'm all for building in more resiliency/redundancy to prevent catastrophes as you mention, but the author takes a couple of major security incidents and spins them into apocalyptic techno-panic.
digi_owl 9y ago