Is That a Coffee Table or a Munition?

One of the standard software security prescriptions for the SDLC is to data classification and enforce least privilege. From a security perspective this sounds fantastic, especially on a whiteboard. When the rubber meets the real world road, things often turn out slightly different. 

It turns out that it is hard to conduct business with excessive granularity.

Here is an article from The Economist on the challenges of space technology, commercialization and information sharing. This is widely applicable to corporate information security policies:

Gravity is not the main obstacle for America’s space business. Government is

IN THE spring of 2006 Robert Bigelow needed to take a stand on a trip to Russia to keep a satellite off the floor. The stand was made of aluminium. It had a circular base and legs. It was, says the entrepreneur and head of Bigelow Aerospace in Nevada, “indistinguishable from a common coffee table”. Nonetheless, the American authorities told Mr Bigelow that this coffee table was part of a satellite assembly and so counted as a munition. During the trip it would have to be guarded by two security officers at all times.

Exporting technology has always presented a dilemma for America. The country leads the world in most technologies and some of these give it a military advantage. If export rules are too lax, foreign powers will be able to put American technology in their systems, or copy it. But if the rules are too tight, then it will stifle the industries that depend upon sales to create the next generation of technology.

It is a difficult balance to strike and critics charge that America has erred on the side of stifling. They claim that overly strict export controls have so damaged the space industry that America’s national security is now threatened by its dwindling leadership in space technology. The system, they complain, fails to distinguish between militarily sensitive hardware that should be controlled and widely available commercial technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries and solar cells. The zealous application of the export rules is the American space industry’s biggest handicap.

Read the whole thing its fascinating. So what started off as well intentioned asset protection eventually compromised the most important asset of all - strategic advantage.

So what's a better model? I am partial to think about these sorts of problems as free trade agreements. Each integration point should have a set of policies, and enforcement mechanisms that also include compensating transactions.

For example, did you know that in the US you can buy companies that trade on other exchanges through ADRs? You buy the ADR of say a French Telco which trades on a European exchange only you buy the ADR on the NYSE or Nasdaq. Then the French Telco issues you a dividend because you are a shareholder, but the French government withholds the dividend for foreign owners. Yet because there is a free trade agreement between the two countries, the US lets you write off the unreceived portion of the dividend on your taxes. (this may or may not be the case in US-France just an example). Anyway, its not a silver bullet but its an interesting strategy.