I’ev been thinking about the effect of cyber security software on the environment. It seems an odd thing to think about perhaps yet it is amazing where a small question can take you. Thankfully, Durham University has been there to help me get my head around this topic, thanks to the national Arrow programme. I’ve had their initial report back and, to be honest, I have a long, long way to go to crack this one.
First of all, why would cyber security software have any effect at all on the environment? Well, all processing uses electricity which has to come from somewhere and, at the moment, much of this comes from fossil fuel consumption. Fossil fuels equals carbon emissions. Then there are also things to think about such as water cooling and the use of rare earth minerals and the picture becomes more complicated.
What I am interested in though is how efficient different kinds of cyber security software are, in terms of energy usage and whether there is an opportunity in measuring efficiency against effectiveness. Ideally the market should decide to buy the most effective software that is the most efficient.
This raises two immediate questions, how do we measure consumption and what are we going to compare this consumption with.
Measuring energy usage for hardware is relatively easy as usage can be measured at the plug. For software it is different as it may run across various servers, across multiple platforms and at varying rates depending upon the work that the software is doing. Ideally then the software should be measured at rest, on a standard operating system and under an agreed simulated load. This will not give actual consumption but an indication of relative consumption.
When it comes to comparing usage, I had thought about the labels that you get on fridges. Here again the measurement is fairly simple, how much energy does it consume to maintain a temperature of x degrees in an ambient temperature of x degrees for example. You can then compare fridges in an A to G scale based upon actual usage.
There is nothing much similar in the software space though the Blue Angel seal has been long used by the German Federal government to establish eco-friendly products (a Type I environmental label that accounts for the entire life cycle of the products which have to be accredited by a third party. In 2022, it has also been used for the first time to validate the resource saving and energy efficiency of software). At least others are thinking about this.
As I said, I have a long, long way to go to crack this one. It’s hard enough just getting my head around its complexities yet even the longest journey starts with a single step. I am a few paces down the road.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 