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From the essay: > "Computer scientists hate, hate thinking about the loss of idealness that comes with scale." Unusual interpretation, but if we fail to impro
by jka 5y ago
From the essay:
> "Computer scientists hate, hate thinking about the loss of idealness that comes with scale."
Unusual interpretation, but if we fail to improve software robustness, reliability, and security, then I interpret this as "don't worry too much about securing your TCP/IP connection with the bank; twenty other forms of information leakage are occurring from the surface contacts involved".
- theamk 5y agoThis is unusual interpretation indeed, and I don't think it matches the reality. Computer scientists don't "hate, hate thinking about the loss of idealness" - there are countless scientists who think about non-ideal cases. In fact, Lanier mentions Shannon in the first paragraph... and his big work was data transmission in non-ideal channels. Same for your analogy -- I am yet to see anyone who would argue against securing TCP/IP connection with the bank, now or in the future. In fact, there is huge body of work about how to secure it properly, and how to keep it secure in the future (against software exploits, quantum computing etc...). The only way those sentences make sense to me is if add "some" qualifiers to it: Yes, some scientists hate thinking about non-ideal conditions; and some developers might not worry about securing connections to the bank. But then this is trivially true -- there are lots of people out there, and there are certainly some people with any opinions. This is not worth the whole essay.