Hence "mixed teams are always stronger", because we can positively
celebrate differences and use them to our advantage. In the end,
winning against the enemy is all that counts.
That's not what I mean though. You make a sweeping generalisation based on the sex. For me, that's not far off saying 'women do worse on the same job'.
FWiW I was educated in the 1980s by a lot of talented people, a large number of whom were women, just to throw that on the table for fun.
Nonetheless, "We massively value women in cybersecurity because generally their security model is better" is an interesting quote, and within your link on page 18 comes the question of "what threats do you see online?" - good question as from threat comes the evolution of security model.
Obvious ever present threats are: (eg)
* Zoom meeting was hacked by immature boys in masks showing silly things they thought were disturbing.
* etc. (ever present threat of real or manufactured revenge porn, etc).
But this one I loved:
* The presence of my Chinese aunties online is pretty terrifying...
Being wached over by hyper smart(?) Mah Jong playing family members, the "chinese aunties" that are behind every major family social networking move and financial investment is seen as a "threat" - a limitation on what you can do.
You cannot disappear from sight - absence will be noted, actions must be masked by acceptable falsehoods that withstand scrutiny .. etc.
> The presence of my Chinese aunties online is pretty terrifying
Yeah that was the line that puzzled me. I see your point better
now. Thanks for that.
Indeed, some of the things raised from that PDF maybe seem "silly" to
me too. But then that's the point. "To me". What I'm championing here
is diversity of worldviews.
To parody my own (male) mind I might say "Ah, cmon, threats to an
actual gas pipeline are more 'important' than feeling gaslighted
online". But then, maybe I'd miss that the cumulative effect on 100
million people not feeling safe to participate online is actually a
massive blow to the vibrancy of national life and democracy.
With this hybrid-vigour (Rebel Ideas [0]) kind of thinking, I want to
hear all views on what security means. So far I've found that it's the
women in the room who seem way ahead in moving from the traditional
military metaphor, of perimeters and offence, and we're actually
seeing that percolating through to mainstream thinking that is slowly
focusing more on "Trust" and relational cybersecurity, as with the new
NIST report this week.
A classic early example of "Chinese aunties" online - eyes that watch everything and miss nothing would be the women of Bletchley Park during WWII.
Every known move of the Germans logged, every reported move was logged, every transmission (encyrpted or not, cracked or not) was logged. Cross references meta data filing was created on the fly to summarise and condences the known knowns, known unknowns, etc.
It was a master class in traffic analysis .. and with it comes the notion that to make it (in world affairs) you need to "fake it" enough that when you actually do something you have the traffic to hide behind.
I would also add that the largest group of sharp analytical minds that I've lost track off from my years in mathematics has been women ... and for the most part they've not been gravitating to kitchens they've been heading towards the five eyes groups, naval signal intelligence, etc - complex, security related, not overly well paid roles that provide national stability.
Appearances are important. But so is substance. I don't hang out with
girls that are all fur coat and no knickers, as we say round here :)
Regarding BP, as a Brit I'd love to do an episode [0] on Mavis Batey
sometime. Have you visited? One of the surprising facts is about the
extraordinary physical working conditions in the huts... it's
summer, the roofs are painted in dark green tar and camouflage, the
machines are kicking out tens of kilowatts...
I've not visited BP, I've been in the vicinity but otherwise engaged and don't live in the UK.
I did interview Bill Tutte in Canada in the 1980s when I was passing through though. I was getting a lot of referrals from my mentors when I was doing some work on the early Cayley, now Magma system in Australia.
That seems similarly sexist to me, is it not? "We massively value men in software development because their abstraction skills are better".