On my recent trip to Hong Kong and Japan, I had a weekend stay in Tokyo. I took the opportunity to spend one of those days on an organized tour of Kyoto. The trip was an adventure in itself, starting a 4:45 AM to catch a high-speed train for the three-hour trip from Tokyo to Kyoto. We returned about 11:00 PM, exhausted but enlightened. We saw six different sites during the day including five ancient temples and the Nijo Castle. It was the castle that really captured my imagination.
The castle, was originally built in 1603 when the first Ieyasu Tokugawa (1542-1616), having won the position of supreme power over western Japan, required the defeated feudal lords to contribute to the castle's construction. Thus began the Tokugawa Shogunate, lasting from 1601 through 1867.
The buildings are beautifully constructed with remarkably large, intricately carved, three-dimensional, wood screens placed in the transoms over doorways. Additionally, the gilded murals on the walls throughout set the mood of the room. The outer receiving halls used images of tigers and wide-branched cypress trees to impress visiting officials with the strength and breadth of the Shogun's rule. The inner private areas are serene garden scenes reserved for intimate family members and friends.
Given that its primary function was as a fortress to protect the Shogun and his retinue, the castle has the expected high and thick walls, moats, and other defensive structures that served to make the inner court impregnable.
In addition to the obvious structural defenses, the tour-guide pointed out a couple other very interesting âi??i?? yet subtle âi??i?? characteristics of the building that initially were not so apparent. This first of these had to do with the ceilings. The raised area reserved for the Shogun to sit had exposed ceiling beams while the area where the audience would sit had typical ceilings that hid the roof beams. The reasoning was simple. Assassins could hide in the ceiling space between the inner ceiling and roof. Removing the ceiling over the Shogun's seating area left a potential assassin with nowhere to hide. Moreover, just to the Shogun's left were tasseled doors behind which everyone knew were the Shogun's personal bodyguards poised to spring into action to protect their liege.
A second technique was even more ingenious. We noticed that as one walked on the floor it squeaked (chirped) with each step. As the several tour groups were walking about, the chirping was quite pronounced. But even a single person, no matter how softly he stepped, caused the floor to chirp. At first I thought that this was very atypical of Japanese construction that, even though ancient, holds up as well as if built last month. The guide explained that the chirping was deliberately designed into the floor construction. Each floorboard was fastened to the floor joists using metal clamps with a nail loosely driven through them. The looseness of the nailing produced the chirping sound as the two pieces of metal rubbed against one another. The Japanese call this a "Nightingale Floor" because of the chirping sound. Consequently, no one could sneak up on the Shogun unannounced. Part of the legend says that floor was created because the Shogun lay awake at night, tense for the sound of an assassin. Once the nightingale floor could be trusted to sound the alarm, he slept securely.
I found it curiously ironic that, more than four hundred years ago, people were creating technology to solve the same problems that we all face today. Namely, how does one keep out the unwanted, unauthorized intruder from places where they do not belong while inviting the necessary visitor? Even once inside the castle walls, there are places where the unauthorized may not go. Even inside our organizations today, innovative approaches to authentication and authorization are solving the same fundamental problems of times gone by.
The difference today is that intrusions happen at light speed. The "assassin" is in and out before human senses could possibly detect him. The assassins' arsenals are becoming ever more sophisticated. At the same time, we must open our electronic trading gates to new relationships that are constantly changing and growing.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
