Re: Adding Math to List of Security Threats - New York Times

[David Farber <dfarber () cs cmu edu>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Date: November 17, 2007 6:26:25 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] Adding Math to List of Security Threats - New York  
Times

I have to say that when I saw this in the NYT, and then again when I  
saw it in the IP list, I was very troubled by the title.  Perhaps that  
is because my core self identifies as a mathematician - I read math  
books for fun, love thinking about architectural designs as algebras,  
and have always loved the power of formalisms to make sense of the  
world.

So the idea that mathematics is a security threat is a linguistic  
framing that worries me.   When "Islam" is a security threat, those  
who go to mosques must feel a little more scared.

Does this mean that when I work with Chinese computer scientists (I  
have a student from PRC) my fellow Americans will suspect that I'm  
dangerous?

Will math itself be classified as a weapon, just as cryptography was  
and is?

I have a different view.   I think that the *security* community is a  
security threat.   Their primary mode of action is to inject paranoid  
thinking into every aspect of modern life.  One must assume (according  
to most of the security professionals, other than Bruce Schneier[yay])  
that the world is full of evil bad guys, and *the only response* is to  
start to wear armor, and to prove that armor absolutely free of  
defects, or one will die.

Well, before the security professionals got so prominent (due to folks  
like my friend Markoff, sad to say), one could presume that one lived  
in a world that was safe, because one's community tended to be  
mutually supportive, and even if my house was broken into, the rest of  
my community would not start to freak out and act insane.

This sense of "community based" security has been replaced by a mutual  
suspicion.

Now of course we have viruses and trojans, etc.  But when we start  
blaming mathematics itself as a "security threat" we are heading down  
a dangerous societal path.




-------------------------------------------
Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com