Re: Separation of Duties...

Amen.
- sjl

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Lampert" <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 5:49 PM
Subject: Re: Separation of Duties...


Earlier on this thread, I referred to "atmosphere of distrust" and
"security theatre."

Regarding the former: I've found two things: First, people tend to
behave the way they are expected to behave. When I used to spend two or
three evenings a week at a local ice rink, skating, I used to leave my
shoes, and my skate bag, out in the open. I didn't expect anybody to
bother them, and they were never bothered. Second, for some time, I've
felt, with some justification, that most of the people who automatically
assume that everybody else is a greedy SOB completely devoid of
integrity are themselves, at least on some level, greedy SOBs seriously
deficient in integrity.

Regarding security theatre, let us never forget that the atrocities of
September 11, 2001 happened precisely because the airline industry's
idea of security was all show, with very little substance. I remember
the rather absurd concept of airport personnel, most of them devoid of
any training in psychology, being required to ask every passenger a
couple of utterly inane questions about their baggage. As if a trained
suicide terrorist wouldn't be well-coached and well-rehearsed in how to
convince even a trained interrogator they were legitimate. I also
remember encountering private, pre-TSA bag screeners who, when I
asserted my legal right to have photographic film non-destructively
hand-inspected, acted as if I'd insulted them. And I've heard stories of
private, pre-TSA bag screeners flat-out refusing to comply with the law.
All show, all bluster, but no real substance. We all know what the
result was.

Make no mistake: restricting access to sensitive data makes a great deal
of sense. And there are situations, typically involving large amounts of
"other people's money," in which separation of duties makes a great deal
of sense as a precaution against embezzlement. But there are other
situations where such things do nothing more than give some people a
false sense of security, while giving others a very real reason to
believe their integrity is being insulted.