Admin tale about the economic aspects of information security

Once upon a time there were User, Competitor, Programmer, Hacker and Admin.
The admin provided the opportunity, the User and the Competitor received results in the form of income from the production and sale of goods. All this movement was regulated by certain High People - inaccessible personalities for ordinary people. But once a competitor of the User decided that he, the Competitor, needed more money than the User and substituted him with a footboard from evil. The user did not even pay attention to it. Then the Competitor dug a hole and covered it with branches. The user fell there, but immediately got out and fell asleep this hole, so that the next time not to please her. Then the competitor came to the admin and told him:

- Can you make sure that the User does not see any holes and cannot get out of them if he falls?

- I can, but I will not. I'm too lazy, and why not? - was the answer of Admin, who bored the airplanes through the huge half-empty room of the data center.
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Since the Competitor was money-hungry and could not directly motivate the Admin, the conversation with the Admin was over. In addition, the Competitor himself thought that the very fact that the User would not be to see the pits is a matter of foggy and incomprehensible to the end, and to himself, therefore, after thinking, he chose another way to achieve the result - automation. The competitor invested, hired a technician who dug holes of different depths and automatically covered them with a thin layer of branches.
The effectiveness of this decision was very high. Then one day, the User went outside and realized that the world was a little different - the opportunity to fall became omnipresent, and even when falling it was painful. Manually digging holes is a waste of time, so the User had to invest in the equipment that buried these holes. He was forced to use the services of the company that had such a technique. The host was a Programmer, he provided services for changing the surface of the entire planet to everyone for money, by the way, the Competitor was also his client.

After some time, the Competitor understood to dig up the pits for the user - to feed the Programmer, and since the pits were still needed, he proposed a business plan for a one-year contract for digging the pits by Programmer for half the amount spent earlier. It turned out as a result: the User paid the Programmer 6% of his income, and the Competitor 3%, the Programmer obtained 9% of the total income, but regularly. The scheme has earned, stable investments from year to year from different competitors brought huge profits to the Programmer. Such long money ensured the comfortable existence of the whole Programmer’s firm until the very end of its life cycle.

But one day a competitor knocked on the door.
He opened, the representatives of the User stood behind the door, claiming that it was impossible to dig holes in the future, that is, absolutely not.
! Never!
The arguments were cited at www.kaspersky.ru/threats_faq , www.esetnod32.ru/company/viruslab/statistics and prison.

The competitor realized that the era of investing money in global technologies was coming and quickly moved to a different algorithm for preventing the User - intellectual routes. Their essence was to build labyrinths for the User, it was more expensive in minus 9% of the competitor's annual income in favor of a certain Hacker, who had heard the secretive personality, but no one had seen.
The advantages of using the system of intellectual routes for the Competitor were indisputable - the User disappeared in these labyrinths for a whole year and the Competitor calmly occupied the market, which the User used to generate income. The competitor exulted:
- Cheers 1 on the market. ONE!!! All my money !!! 1111 Only 1! FF ...

...

A year later, the User, embittered by his failure, with an already compiled map of correct and incorrect routes, left the labyrinth and landed in an old pit dug by a competitor, got out of it, and cursing went to the admin.

- What's up? –I asked the user to admin. - around some labyrinths, where is my simple beautiful world, where is my world filled with the beauty of simplicity, why are there such difficulties? WHAT FOR?!

“The reason is money, or rather their number, the desire for wealth,” the Admin explained to him, “now the rules of the game are as follows, and then it will be harder and harder and so on until the end of the life cycle!”

Since the cost of services became higher than a year ago, the User had to borrow money at 10% per annum for 10 years in order to enter the market again. He succeeded, but in order not to please him again in the labyrinth, the User was forced to invest in the service of providing maps for passing the mazes in 1 second, which cost him about 30% of his annual income, and at the same time. The user once again got into debt, but production nevertheless went, with a creak, with an incomprehensible roar against the background, it gained momentum like a rusty train that stood for about 50 years in the depot, seized upon the work intended for it.
The competitor was in a frenzy, all his efforts for nothing, the whole market again gradually begins to look towards the User. And the main question “What to do?” Begins to be continuously updated in the question “Who is to blame?”. And of course the user is to blame, but who else? He avoided traps, bought equipment and services in order to minimize the work of the Competitor. This is his cunning plan that allowed him to successfully enter the market even after a year of absence. And the competitor, stirring up his thoughts and rearranging them under suspicion, went to the High People with a desperate idea, written on paper, in the text of which the words NEA, NSD, PEMIN, terror, threat and other terrible speech were often encountered.
High People were greatly excited by the Competitor's speech:

“And you cannot neither prove nor disprove, but what if everything that he said comes true?” One of them wondered.

“If it comes true, then it’s right, and this is just a matter of time, it’s going to come true anyway, you have to do something urgently,” the other echoed.

- The risk is too great, it's state security !!! - the third already affirmed.

After the departure of the Competitor, the High People thought and decided to listen to all the conversations and all people in all countries in order to have an opinion about the unrest among the people, about potential and emerging threats, as well as about all users and their movements in the market - God forbid something . The hero of this fairy tale, the same User, was among those users. Now he had to report to different authorities more often than before, to spend additional sums “on security” for all other taxes, and eventually it even became an expense item, as in the 90s in Russia, then they also spent “on security”, only the scheme Payment was simplified, it’s impossible. The User, of course, came to understand the new risks of business, but even such an obvious fact as equalizing the cost of part of his income with the cost of these risks “did not lead” him to delight, because he understood that when the cost of risks increases, the margin is directly reduced, because the market is harder and harder to sell a product simply because of the increase in its value for “ air safety”.

- Maybe it depends directly on the level of life of all the inhabitants of the planet? If everyone gets a little more than now at the rate of inflation + the value of the cost of that notorious “security”, then everyone will be happy! - the User reflected. - But even if it is, then what will cover this ever-increasing difference between the real value of goods at retail, for example, and the cost of the same product with the “security” wrapping. Will states be able to provide this value with their economies? There, by 0.1% along the security line, something becomes more expensive, and in the product this increase is as much as 1.5 times. Yes, it's a black hole!

The User had many questions and almost all the answers became obvious to him after some time except for “security”. He even re-read all of WikiLeaks and privacyinternational, but to no avail. He went to the admin, and the one with his head in numerous monitors and servers and, plainly without even looking at him, waved away:

- I don’t care much for you now, you need to provide security, time is short, the end of the life cycle is coming. - answered that.

- The life cycle of what? - did not understand User

- The life cycle of the economy, - Admin said quietly and showed him one of the many monitors on the screen.

On the screen, a red bar in several divisions crawled to the ZERO mark with a reading of 1%. The headline on the screen read:
“GLOBAL SECURITY SYSTEM. STATISTICS".
Slightly lower, already a green stripe glowed on the entire width of the screen "RELIABILITY OF THE SECURITY SYSTEM"
with readings of 99.999999999999%

- So are you driving? ... this system, - a little worried, the User asked the Admin.

- No, of course, I just follow the instructions and I can’t affect the BEST side. - he answered with restraint.

Use the stunned went home. Thoughts one after another floated in his head, but not letting them to end, they were covered with a wave already by others, new ones, they branched with terminations of possible results, but at the same time they were confused, forming randomly melting symbols read by pulsating pain in temples at random plexus: “ Crash .
The realization of this, like a lightning strike flashed through the User’s head, burning all the last hopes for a different outcome of his fate. Not understanding what to do with this further, as in a fog, he met the Competitor near his house, apparently he was in the same condition:

- Forgive me, I was wrong, he asked, turning to the User. - What have I done? I just knocked everyone out of the way, harmed you, caught up with fear in the High People, in general, I realized that I was a low and greedy person!

“Nothing is forever in this world,” the User answered him, he stretched out his hand to him and the Competitor shyly shook it, “here you have already changed. It’s good that you confessed at least for now; it’s personally not so sad for me at the end of my days. The main thing to remember about human values.

But we must remember constantly. - The user knowingly put his hand on the competitor's shoulder. - and it’s too late, let's go, buy something for a while for a drink for money until the whole system collapses. Let's talk better for life.

“Let's go,” the Competitor agreed, and said in a sad, low voice, “Forgive me.”

- What did we do, produce goods? Hah, yeah, right now. - the User thought out loud, kicking wide maple leaves, rushing to his feet with each gust of wind, - Mouse fuss for a piece of matter. Do not worry, forgive, to keep evil at your competitors - to not respect yourself.

And they went into the oncoming darkness under the already dim lanterns, testifying with their fading about the end of the meaning of the concepts "economy" and "security".