Thursday, February 18, 2010

Secret

“The key is not to pour money into protecting information, but to develop a global approach to neutralizing its value. By creating secrets, we have created value, which is pursued by opportunists.”- John M. Brock

This was a reaction to the hacking from Europe and China of the computers of nearly 2,500 U.S. companies and government agencies over the last 18 months. The information accessed by the hackers range from credit card transactions to intellectual property.

Personally, I think the statement is too simplistic. While I agree that everyone should have access to information whenever they need and want to, I don’t think all kinds of information should be out there for the whole world to know. The value of information is not created all the time as information may be valuable in itself. When information is not protected, its integrity may also suffer. It would be so easy for people to make up information and difficult for others to determine which is reliable and true. People still need to feel secure that the information they meant to share with only a few will remain within that circle only. Companies should also be entitled to have their own secrets, otherwise they would be less competitive.

Opportunists will always be around, they just come in different sizes and shapes. We should still not let our guard down.

10th Entry

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704398804575071103834150536.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

1 comment:

Owen Ricalde said...

while the internet has made information vastly more available to more people, i think this would benefit the world. more people are educated (even in a very unorthodoxed manner). more people can have an opportunity to change the world.

the thing is, people still have a choice. it's not like everything (all information) is available in the internet. kaya nga yung ibang tao chose not to have facebook accounts etc. bottomline, it is still your choice to make that information publicly available in the internet.