Fresh Voices headed to the RSA Conference 2006 in San Jose to hear Microsoft CEO Bill Gates keynote on securing our digital future without compromising our user experience.

John Furrier [PodTech.net] | POSTED: 02.21.06 @07:00

Fresh Voices coverage of the RSA Conference 2006 includes a podcast of Bill Gates keynote address. Gates used the address as a chance to highlight Microsoft`s plans to achieve a more secure digital future, where interconnected worldwide networks will let people work and play across a host of devices, products, services, and organizations, all with greater confidence in the security of their experiences.

As he urged the death of all passwords, he offered alternatives from Microsoft. Gates believes the industry must develop four key areas: a trust ecosystem, an ability to engineer for security, a simple approach, and fundamentally secure platforms. His address dives into greater detail on each point and outlines what must happen to achieve success in each.

Further, Gates highlighted advancements in the forthcoming Windows Vista release, such as isolation techniques to reduce the impact of malware, improved identity and access controls, and better data protection. He also showcased innovations surrounding the platform such as Windows OneCare Live and industry partnerships such as the SecureIT Alliance. He called for the industry to come together to achieve a more secure computing experience for all users.

``Well, I think there are four key things, each one of which I`ll dive into: the trust ecosystem, an ability to engineer for security, [a] simple approach so that the models are quite clear, and finally, fundamentally secure platforms where the capabilities really are designed in a way that you don`t have to pay much attention to them.``

``What we need here is an ability to track those trust relationships, to be able to grant permissions and to be able to revoke those trust relationships, to develop reputation over time; if a piece of code is not behaving appropriately, it should be marked that way and therefore blocked from being used on different systems.``

``So we have to design things to be secure, we have to deploy them in a way so that the way they are defaulted, they`re very secure, and you have audit logs in terms of how things are used, and you have to have really very simple management tools that let you go out and verify.``

``So simplicity for end users, simplicity for IT professionals, and simplicity for developers, making them write far less code than they`re writing today, making them understand the patterns that are really key, and so they`re doing the right things.``

``...Another key element is fundamentally secure platforms; that is, you can`t layer on top of the system elements that really make something secure in terms of being able to track, keep it up to date; you just get too much of a mismatch between the elements, and so that`s not going to work.``

``For every improvement we make, they look for additional vulnerabilities, and so the idea that we have to improve, really improve broadly in a consistent way with tools that allow for broad adoption of these things, I think is extremely important.``