This is one of the more intriguing stories I have read coming out of RSA this year, and frankly it is a bit of a “light bulb” moment for me. As we have seen the growth of cloud-based services drive end users to a more ubiquitous device/app approach for accessing data, it seems obvious that edge defense can and should adjust to this architecture. Google has simply (easy for me to say) taken the next step and moved all interactions to an open, untrusted network topology.
I am energized by the idea of building security methodologies that focus on trusting the user and the device and less on defending the perimeter. Culturally, I believe we will be dragged in this direction regardless of our personal philosophies on the subject.