[Cryptography] The Laws (was the principles) of secure information systems design

Rick Smith, Cryptosmith me at cys.me
Fri Jul 15 22:31:04 EDT 2016


For comparison, take a look at this article:

 https://cryptosmith.com/2013/10/19/security-design-principles/

… which looks at various attempts to codify security design principles. It’s a long version of an IEEE S&P article from 12/2012. The article starts with Saltzer and Schroeder’s list(s) developed during the Multics project. The online version includes a lot of less-interesting detail about  national and international attempts to draft a ‘complete’ list in the late ‘90s. The efforts eventually burned out with few satisfactory results. 

Personally, I see no point to drafting a master list of principles. Such lists can be useful for specific things - my textbook has a list of principles, but it’s purely a pedagogical tool and not an engineering tool. A particular software engineering project might draft a list of principles to use within the project - one that focuses on the main issues facing the project team. 

A useful list has to be short and pithy. A ‘complete’ list will be too long. It will also hit different levels of abstraction, making it really hard for different people to interpret.

Just my two cents.

Rick.



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