Assimilation of Technology

by Horacio Cantú

On this occasion I will talk specifically about wireless technology, and I am not referring to the way in which the security industry has been using this technology for many years, and which has a very high level of security; but I refer to wireless transmission methods that involve the service of a third party, usually a cellular company whose business focus is on generating airtime and data consumption and not precisely the security of these.

That is, when we occupy data lines transmitted via cell phone, there is no guarantee of anything, it is enough to read the contract for the provision of services and realize it; However, we continue to transmit data from security systems despite all this and there is a good reason for this, because it is the cheapest and most effective option for now, and that is what I want to talk about on this occasion: the assimilation of technology related to the evolution that it has in relation to with security solutions, and the real risk that represents that the vast majority of security professionals are not able to express to their customers the limitations of these technologies, by not knowing the scope and real limitations of these.

Technological evolution

Now, evolution is in spite of this, it occurs and does not stop, much of this is explained in the book The Earth is Flat, by the American journalist Thomas Friedman, where he exposes in an unbeatable way this technological evolution its scope and risks; I consider this a must-read for every security and technology professional.

One of the central themes is the connectivity that leads man to form global communities just by being connected to the Internet or to global companies regardless of their infrastructure. Evolution involves moving forward despite problems and difficulties, tolerating failures and deviations, the assimilation of this way of thinking opens our eyes to what is to come and how we should assimilate it.

On one occasion an aircraft manufacturer was asked why airplanes fall, to which he replied: "everything that man does is susceptible to failure", or we can also see what a well-known character in the computer area answered when asked how many types of computer users had said: "there are two types of computer users, those who are about to lose their data and those who have already lost it"; not because an airplane falls we are going to stop using them, or because someone loses their data we are going to stop using computers, we will continue to do it even if they continue to fail, what is a reality is that they fail less and less and this reaches the security systems transmitted by cellular means.

The assimilation of conscious and knowledge-based technology, makes us move away from being carried away by evolution with a series of fears or overconfidence, so we become participants and not only spectators, technology is not only related to technique, it is only a part.

Food technology involves the plate and cutlery; we could go back to the principles of humanity and make an evolutionary chronology about this, touching on topics from rudimentary tools to eat to the cutlery we currently have, through eating habits and everything they can think of. The same happens with the technological evolution in security, we must be aware that the evolution we are living modifies the way of working and thinking in relation to security, we develop the necessary knowledge about our activity to dimension in a clear way the opportunities and risks of our profession, that is our responsibility.

Let's start with being aware and continue to specialize in the areas of Information Technology and telecommunications, today it is a market requirement, if we do not do it like this, we run the worst of risks, that our client knows more than us.