From the Editor of Linux Journal:

Welcome to our annual issue about necessary information technology security tools for the enterprise, I mean sinister tools of massive repression.

What's the difference? In most cases, only the use to which you put the tool. Security is a fascinating subject because it exercises both your logical, problem-solving side—what would an attacker have to compromise to get from point A to point B—and your conscience.

You've often heard that security has to be designed in, not bolted on. That makes everyone in information technology a security professional, whether it says “security” on your business card or not. And as a security professional, you have to consider security threats at two levels: the many small attacks from people who want to copy credit-card numbers, send spam and deface web sites, and the larger, slower attack from those who want to destroy our civilized way of life on the Net, with all its messy free speech, and institute a tidy regime of surveillance and “digital rights management”.

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