RSA president Art Coviello, gave the opening speech at the event on Monday. Speaking to journalists on Tuesday about whether Microsoft has really improved its approach to security, he claimed that the company was definitely making more effort around the issue.
"Vista is a much more secure operating system than anything that they have brought to the market in the past, and levels of awareness are at an all-time high inside the company," Coviello said.
However, Coviello went onto criticise the way that the security industry has become too reactive and product-focused, which has limited its ability to think strategically and anticipate vulnerabilities before they are exploited.
"We need to get away from this reactive brand of security — reacting to a problem and trying to plug it, rather than thinking about it holistically. Security products have begun to define [how we approach security], rather than standing back and thinking about it holistically," Coviello said.
Talkback
Now a prime representative of the folks we do NOT want getting our data is saying that the ID card database will make it easier to get hold of not harder. He is also giving us the mechanism by which it would be done.
In the past it has been folks from the security services, private security experts, senior police officers, academics etc etc etc. Polls suggest that the general public are more and more suspicious of this project. The only senior people that seem to be saying that this is all a good idea are the Home Office and the Labour party.
Why oh why then are we still sloshing millions and eventually billions into this scheme?
It would seem to be pure hutzpa on the part of our great leaders. "We know best. You just shut up."
If you want to see more about this issue, try going to www.no2id.net
It is actually going to be very easy to get a "valid" card complete with your own bio-data on it.
All you'll need is supporting documents that are already forged. We all know it's easy to get hold of birth certificates, NI numbers and drivers licenses. If the systems around the supporting documents is weak, then so is the ID card system.
The problem with the ID card is that it will be accepted as absolute proof of identity. Without question you will be the person on that card. At least at the moment you have to provide a couple of supporting documents.
Personally I would have thought the money was better spent on making those supporting documents more secure. At the end of the day we will have spent billions on a card that is going to be used to join your local video shop.