An Information Security Triality: Balancing Security, Surveillance, and Convenience

Information security cultural iconography focuses on heroic and demonic archetypes, resulting in a pageant of evocative, emotional imagery that influences reportage, regulation, acquisition, enterprise governance, and the choices made by individuals with respect to their digital personae. The angels (in the epic struggle in the wires between good and evil) are the network defenders. They are tirelessly vigilant, covering every avenue of attack, thwarting intrusion attempts, blocking malware deployments, and mitigating enterprise risk at every turn. Evil is found in attackers, malicious actors who breach defenses, steal data, and render systems unavailable with potentially catastrophic results. The dualistic (binary) notion . . .