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> Like many, I was surprised and shocked by the election of Donald Trump as president. To me, this is a fundamental flaw with those in charge of our security.
by ipunchghosts 10y ago
> Like many, I was surprised and shocked by the election of Donald Trump as president.
To me, this is a fundamental flaw with those in charge of our security. Your job in security is essentially to predict the future. The best security should be surprised by nothing.
I can't see how BS was surprised by Trump being elected. he had literally millions of datapoints to sample. The election is not some hidden process that spits an answer out. You simply hold a vote, count the votes, and the elect.
I like BS and have been reading him for about 10 years but this has really changed my view about him. I'm starting to think he really doesnt get it.
- scblock 10y agoThis comment makes zero sense.
- burke 10y agoThere is a logic to it in a way, but I think it goes too far. The security industry should strive to not have to broadly re-evaluate practices based on surprises. Shock and surprise are fine, but they shouldn't cause a scramble of reactionary work, since that work should have been done in anticipation of the potential threat.
- ipunchghosts 10y agoI will restate my point another way and hopefully it will make sense. The fact that BS was surprised that Trump got elected means in some sense he is not tuned to the issues right in front of him. Scott Adams would say he is living in another reality than half of america (half of america voted for trump). Security is all about prediction. You are most secure when you can predict everyone's movements. Regarding the US vote of trump, there were lots of signs that showed Trump had a real chance of winning. It wasnt like the polls showed trump down by many points and then all of a sudden several million american's changed their mind and decided to vote for him. If you read about poll science, you will see Trump had the large gain in polls ever seen since they started polling.
- matt4077 10y agoWell, I understood you the first time, and it's not getting better. Scott Amundsen would say "Nate Silver gave Trump a 30% chance, 30% chances sometimes happen (about 30% of the time), and you and Scott Adams are trying to extrapolate a single point of data into a Grand Unifying Theory of why you're awesome and how liberals live in la-la-fantasy-land." The idea that some sort of personal connection to a different group of voters allows you to better predict election results than the combined effort of dozens of polling firms calling hundreds of thousands of people is laughable on it's face.
- pg314 10y agoA small nitpick: a little bit less than half of the voters voted for Trump (63 million people), not half of Americans (which would be 159 million people).
- matt4077 10y agoHe no longer likes Bruce Schneider because Bruce doesn't like Donald Trump.
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoBecause Bruce didn't expect Trump. I mean, I think the expectation is bogus. But at least state it correctly.
- vanderZwan 10y ago> Your job in security is essentially to predict the future. Sure, within your own problem domain. You're making an unrealistic demand of BS here; he might as well play the stock market if he had the kind of predictive superpower you expect of him. AFAIK his domain is cryptographic security, and more broadly how technology creates/undermines security. The politics he normally deals with are limited to the kind directly related to that.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]