Irresistible Forces and Immovable Objects: When National Security and Cybersecurity Collide

Security is inherently binary, like being alive or being married. Just as you can’t be “almost married” or “almost alive” (Schrodinger’s cat notwithstanding), you can’t be “mostly secure.”. There’s no way to create a solution that will permit compromise only by certain entities under certain carefully delineated circumstances while defeating all other malicious access attempts. A door, no matter how carefully guarded, is still a hole in the wall. In some cases, the very act of cutting through the wall to create the doorway creates architectural weaknesses that can cause the entire edifice to come crashing . . .