BlogInfoSec.com

The infosec field commonly defines availability as:

assurance in the timely and reliable access to data services for authorized users. It ensures that information or resources are available when required.

It seems that Stephen Baker of Businessweek has a different standard:

Are communications getting worse? Not by a long shot. We’re surrounded by miraculous machines and services, most of them calibrated to a level software engineers have long called “good enough.” In the right circumstances, good enough is great for the entire economy. A marketplace that’s not hung up on fail-safe standards is open to risk and innovation, and drives down prices. Ever since the dawn of the PC–the archetype for a good-enough machine–inventors have been freer than ever to piece together and launch their visions. Some are brilliant, some are half-baked, many are a blend of the two. A precious few are up and running 99.999% of the time–Bell’s old standard. But they cost far less to build.

So, according to Businessweek, availability is not required — as in, “I need Skype so I may make a phone call now or by tomorrow” — as we assume. The “I can live without it temporarily if it’s inexpensive enough” — assuming I have a backup plan (a.k.a, cell phone - see linked article) — is the name of the game.

Bookmark this post

•Sphere: Related Content•  Print

Related Articles:

• It’s All About the People: Assessing Your Organization’s Network Perimeter (pt. 4)
• Fitting the CIA Triad in a Business Context: The Concept of Agile Security
• OSSIM : Open Source Security Information Manager
• Our Polymorphic Fluid Field of Information Security
• Corporate Governance: A Dirty Word or a Dirty Job?