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The Philosophy of Security
Table of Contents:
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Category Mistake ............................................................................................................................ 2
Ockham’s Razor .............................................................................................................................. 3
Ockham’s Razor Misapplied ............................................................................................................. 3
First Cause and Trust Anchors............................................................................................................ 5
Greedy Reductionism ....................................................................................................................... 8
The Verification Problem ................................................................................................................... 9
Confessions of an Unethical Hacker – Part 1 ..................................................................................... 11
Confessions of an Unethical Hacker – Part 2 ..................................................................................... 11
Confessions of an Unethical Hacker – Part 3 ..................................................................................... 12
People and Technology: An Analysis for Part 1 ................................................................................. 12
People and Technology: An Analysis for Part 2 ................................................................................. 14
People and Technology: An Analysis for Part 3 ................................................................................. 16
How Security Technology Can Help People ...................................................................................... 16
How People Can Hurt Security Technology ....................................................................................... 17
Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 20
Introduction
Many security whitepapers begin with an in-depth analysis of an algorithm or they begin by showing
how easy it is to exploit various vulnerabilities. The intention is to scare you into performing the steps
outlined by the whitepaper or buy the technology the whitepaper promotes. We are not going to do
that here. This introduction to security endeavors to step back and look at security more generally
and apply some basic philosophical concepts to help understand security in a more meaningful way.
Essentially, we are going to use Holism and apply it to security. What is Holism?
Holism -
In the philosophy of the social sciences, the view that denies that all large-scale social events
and conditions are ultimately explicable in terms of the individuals who participated in, enjoyed, or
suffered them. Methodological holism maintains that at least some social phenomena must be studied
at their own autonomous, macroscopic level of analysis, that at least some social “wholes” are not
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