IP: The thermodynamics of terrorism

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Jim is the Dean of the School of Computer Science at CMU



> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 11:22:14 -0400
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: "James H. Morris" <james.morris () cmu edu>
>
> The 9/11/01 attack reminds me of the demonstrations in which knocking over 
> one domino results is thousands of dominos falling. They spent only half a 
> million dollars to destroy billions in physical assets and even more in 
> market losses. A strategic planning manual for a terrorist might say, 
> "Attack a point in your enemy's system with high potential energy and low 
> entropy. Those are the areas where a small perturbation can cause the most 
> havoc." The counter strategy for our society is "Don't build such systems. 
> Avoid single points of failure. Decentralize and disperse control."
>
> Here are some examples of systems that follow the principle of 
> high-entropy design compared to their more vulnerable alternatives:
>   The Internet instead of the phone system.
>   NASDAQ instead of the NYSE with its trading floor, useful only for 
> photo-ops.
>   Gnutella et al. instead of Napster.
>   Air transport that uses thousands of small air taxis rather than 
> today's hub-and-spoke system (James Fallows)
>   A competitive, heterogeneous operating system market instead of a 
> monoclonal Microsoft one.
>   Al Qaeda instead of the CIA.
>   A dispersed population instead of mega-cities.
>
> Adoption of such systems will occur naturally because they survive better. 
> They will depend upon increasing commitment to computer and communications 
> technology. So cyber-security will eventually be central to all security.
>
> There are ways to fight terrorism more directly, but designing robust 
> infrastructure should not be ignored.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> James H. Morris
> Dean, School of Computer Science
> 412 609-5000
> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jhm


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