Jaron Lanier’s recent essay “DIGITAL MAOISM” casts users of online collaborative systems like Wikipedia and Digg into slaves of the faceless mob; each of us a subservient to the rejection of individuality and creativity.

For both the attacker and defender security engineer, its generally believed that being unpredictable and diverse provide an upper hand. Conversely, supporting n+2 operating systems and identity tools equates to n+10 support and integration issues. As such, IT departments have historically relied upon the Common Operating Environment. For the sake of interoperability, the Internet as a whole relies on RFCs and bodies like the IETF. These organizations provide a like-minded outcome and each of us develop tools based upon the standard.

Lanier would have us believe that at some point in time, collaboration falls on its own sword and creates a reversal. From that climatic point going forward it’s a down turn, nose-snubbing smear to creativity and individual thought. Turing this supposition into serious thought regarding security practices proves to be both tough and interesting. If every organization were to look the same, be the same, act the same then a single defector could 0wn us all. I relish in the day when every person reads email in plain text and changes their password regularly. There is a natural life cycle of the hive mind and for security; we are still at the infancy stage of “security awareness”. For the time being, our skills are probably still desired.

Can Lanier’s essay hold water outside of Wikipedia and Digg?