Security Is Hard, But That Doesn’t Mean You Should Ignore It ~ Andromeda Tech

Six weeks ago I was out drinking in a Kipling-themed bar in Rangoon, Myanmar — as you do — and happened to find myself next to a table of high-powered international telecommunications consultants, overhearing juicy lines like “Skype and Viber are going to kill us.” Needless to say I told Twitter right away. Then an old friend who’s also a genuine International Man Of Mystery got in touch and asked if we could chat about Myanmar’sproposed ban on VOIP. Securely.

He has his very good reasons to insist on secure communications. But to my embarrassment and dismay, given that I’m a software pro with scads of hacker friends, I was largely unprepared for that request. The sad truth is that real online security has never seemed worth the hassle to me. Oh, I switched my Facebook connections to HTTPS-only as soon as I could; I select/Control-C/Control-V a portion of every password I enter when in Internet cafes; and I disabled Java when its huge security hole was revealed earlier this year. But truly secure communications? That’s always seemed like more trouble than it’s worth.

I felt foolish and credulous and unprepared — until earlier this month. So I’d just like to thank David Petraeus for making me feel a whole lot better about the situation:

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