Security in a Web 2.0+ World: A Standards-Based Approach

Chapter 3. Protecting Web 2.0: What Makes it so Challenging?

"Houston, we have a problem"

Executive Summary

In his futuristic cyber crime novel The Halting State,^[44] Charles Stross takes his readers on a trip through Second Life in the year 2019 (not coincidentally) and describes an environment where the events in a grid-crime^[45] can cross over and inspire crimes in the real world that have real consequences and global impact. Although a purely fictional account, Stross' crime novel, nevertheless, provides an inkling of how Web 2.0 might evolve and shape a world in which virtual tools redraw the relationship between humans and machines narrowing distances between the two and heightening the interaction between them across all senses. The novel also gives the reader pause for thought by demonstrating what can happen when reliance on technology that was considered a source of power suddenly turns into a vulnerability in the wake of a system failure. The source of the failure is a compromised encryption key that has been implemented to protect all commercial and government functions. The repercussions are far-reaching and absolute. No border is sacred and no business or government agency is spared. But before we speculate any further on the evolution of Web 2.0 in 2019, and concern ourselves with the potentially apocalyptic consequences that it implies, let's take a step back and take a closer look at just what Web 2.0 is as a way of getting a better understanding of why it should ...