WW: Bruce Schneier on why security can't work

Mon Mar 18 17:07:14 UTC 2013

----- Original Message -----
> From: "." <oscar.vives at gmail.com>

> This is a problem for the future to solve. Not us.

Seriously?

> In bioweapons, I think we are still on the "happy hackers era", where
> people in a biochemical laboratory in Liverpool have access to some
> fungus that can wipe half the city, but don't do, because have a lot
> of fun studying the fungus to learn new antibiotics, or maybe to cure
> baldness. Scientist are, of course, hackers. Fun people that make
> this question: Exploitability. Can this fungus be used to cure
> baldness? Can this fungus be exploited to remove plastic from our
> oceans?.
> 
> Exploitablity is a fun good word, and I never see a person like Bruce
> Schneier talk about it (how fucking awesome is exploitability). So
> reading people like Bruce Schneier you only get half the picture.
> We exist only because the carbon based chemistry is exploitable to the
> x900000. If carbon where less exploitable, like silice, maybe life
> will not exist. Similary, maybe you need exploitability to have a
> internet.

You very well might.  But never before have the stakes been this high.

As Spenser is so fond of quoting Clausewitz: you plan not for your 
enemy's intentions, but for his capabilities.

In the next 3 years, it will become possible to build an autonomously
navigating aircraft that can a) cross the Atlantic and b) carry a 
nuclear weapon.

The surveillance someone advocates in another posting won't help you 
there; your first warning will be "Manhattan goes boom".

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra at baylink.com
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