Meeting notice: The 01.03.20 meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Royal East (782 Main St., Cambridge), a block down from the corner of Main St. and Mass Ave. If you're new and can't recognize us, ask the manager. He'll probably know where we are. More details below. <-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-> Suggested Topic: Since we got snowed out last time my curiosity over the theory that technological change -- especially rapid, continuous, TC -- differentially rewards offense remains unsated. Offensive strategies are constrained by penetrating power (muscle) and defense by sensing and analysis (brains), respectively. The theory is that over any given period, Rapid Technological Change improves the former faster than the latter, perhaps because muscle responds more quickly to an given investment in engineering than intelligence. Of course there are exceptions -- these days defense in baseball (batting) seems to be doing better than offense (pitching), but perhaps that is because the rules of the game inhibit technological change severely. If there were no such restrictions, if pitching was a matter of cannon firing balls over the plate as fast as technology allowed, then offense might well be outpacing even robot batters. The most obvious example of this line of thought is nuclear weaponry, though something of the same dynamic seems to be overtaking even conventional warfare (as missiles get cheaper and more powerful). One line of argument against Nuclear Wewapons Defense is that advances in muscle (multiple attacks, including lots of decoys) are a lot cheaper and easier to come by, and therefore cycle faster, than the increases in intelligence (rigorous and exhaustive testing regimes) required to deal with those advances. It is generally conceded that advances in computation (muscle) are steadily widening the advantage that cryptography (which on this model represents offense) enjoys over cryptanalysis, though everyone usually posits that this advantage might be lost overnight if the defense makes some breakthrough in smarts, as in factoring theory. As networks develop the problem of network security seems to get steadily worse, not better, possibly because more and more hackers (= increases in penetrating power) can get access to more and more systems. At the same time, as networks have spread throughout the population, the quality, or smartness, of the personnel responsible for defense has declined. Given that both sides of the equation have gone south simultaneously it is no wonder that internet security is in such an abysmal state. (Though it should be noted that the ratio of CERT alerts to hosts has been going down, which might count as a counterexample of the hypothesis.) How about business? Does the rise in consumer and corporate debt mean that technology has made marketing more offensive (in the literal, not aesthetic sense of the term)? Is technology making it easier to steal markets or defend them? Does it lower or raise barriers to entry? Arguments can be made either way, but it is certainly the case that desktop manufacturing, especially as it will develop over the next decade or two, is an offensive weapon in the sense being discussed here par excellence. (I think most of us expect most manufacturing companies to look increasingly like fashion industry "houses": innovation hungry, mostly virtual structures, and almost totally vulnerable to copying.) Data base technology has allowed politics to move in the direction of peeling off the other guy's votes. The developing controversy over privacy seems to represent another victory of offense over defense. Where it becomes impossible to think in terms of strong points or fixed lines of defense, the responding side (defense) usually tries to adopt offensive strategies of its own -- matching vulnerability with vulnerability, exposure with exposure. Everybody embraces MAD, all up and down the line. If the situation breaks out of control, then all sides invade; everybody fights in depth; all territory is up for grabs. Something close to this is being developed as a war- fighting doctrine for today's "conventional" wars. One has to wonder if every sector of the culture will have to develop a functional equivalent, now that we seem to be moving into a war of all against all, where nothing can be nailed down, locked up, or made safe. Interesting times. <-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-> Announcement Archive: http://www.pobox.com/~fhapgood/nsgpage.html. <-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-><-> Legend: "NSG" expands to Nanotechnology Study Group. 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