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Bruce Schneier awarded fellowship at Harvard's Berkman Center (schneier.com)
120 points by frostmatthew on July 13, 2013 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments



Given the academic setting, perhaps it is a great chance and timing for Schneier to work on the computing equivalent of Popper's Open Society [1] and Literature's narrative with an Unreliable Narrator? [2].

This would amount to something like "computing on top of an untrustable technical, social and political stack", in relation to Kernighan's "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself" [3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_society

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

[3] http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html


Is this something he has indicated that he wants to work on? Or are you just hoping he will decide to work on these three concepts that you find interesting?


It's a refinement of the fellowship's description: explore the intersection of security, technology, and people -- with a particular emphasis on power https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/newsroom/2013_2014_community


You meant your interpretation not refinement?


It's not an interpretation, it's a suggestion of a more specific (which is what I meant with "refined") idea. Both the article and the linked fellowship description only mention a very broad topic.

A bit like when I tell you that I'm making a salad, and you suggest that I try quinoa.


If you were already making a salad why would I suggest you try a different salad?


Schneier's post only mentions that he is going to work on security, power and technology as research topics. That's quite broad, so I suggested something that may be interesting within that.


So you could have just responded "Yes, I am hoping he will decide to work on these three concepts that I find interesting" to my original question.


Yes, I could, and I meant that when I said that it was a suggestion. I take from this that there is something (unintentionally) ambiguous or misleading in my original post, I'll check that.


Or perhaps, in place of this entirely irrelevant and fictitious shopping list you could just read the article where he says what he is going to try to do.


No, the only topic the article mentions is "security and power and technology".

How can a suggestion for a research topic be "fictitious"?


It would be awesome if he could do an informal talk at the Boston Security Meetup. We'd all love to hear him! http://www.meetup.com/boston-security-meetup/


Damn, just when I leave Harvard, Schneier comes to town. Would have loved to do some work with him on security theater.




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