Letter to the Editor: Security for Artisans A Reflective Practitioner's View of Today's Security Professional and the Protection Business
Abstract
Security is receptive to scientific advance, but is no field for scientists to dominate. The exigencies of protection are too fluid and the stakes too high for submitting one's livelihood, assets, or life to rigid metrics and laboratory-grade theories that fall apart on first contact with mortal hazard. On the other hand, security is no long-term home for artists, either. Not that the protective world need be inhospitable to creativity or innovation ''' particularly if these produce desired protection on time and within ambient resource constraints. However, the artist's highest aspiration to be and do something unique will find a better home elsewhere. In the protection business, it is not only useful but necessary to be able to replicate and commoditize one's highest achievement, to spread it widely and often without taking credit for it. In this context, die-hard artists will surely look to greener pastures more befitting their egos and temperaments. Where does that leave us, then, if security is neither art nor science and if security welcomes visitors from both camps but offers a home to neither? Security at its best is a home for artisans. It is one of those hybrid disciplines whose highest expressions derive from synthesis, from blending theory and innovation together and then applying the mixture with gusto and finesse to situations where success may occasionally surface but where failure is unmistakable and fatal to people, institutions, or careers. Security is no place for the faint of heart, for the indecisive, for the chronically risk averse. It can be a natural fit, however, for defenders, pragmatic idealists, and masters of the calculated risk.
Description
This article appeared in Homeland Security Affairs (February 2011), v.7 no. 1
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Homeland Security Affairs Journal, Volume III - 2007: Issue 3, September
Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate SchoolCenter for Homeland Defense and Security, 2007-09);September 2007. Six years after the attacks of 9/11, the practice and discipline of homeland defense and security have evolved and matured, moving into an era of self-evaluation. The essays and articles in Volume III, Issue ... -
Homeland Security Affairs Journal, Volume I - 2005: Issue 2, Fall
Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate SchoolCenter for Homeland Defense and Security, 2005-09);September 2005. Welcome to the second issue of Homeland Security Affairs. The central theme is Hurricane Katrina. We also offer articles about critical infrastructure protection and capabilities based planning. One of ... -
Analysis of Intel IA-64 processor support for secure systems
Unalmis, Bugra. (2001-03);Current architectures typically focus on the software-based protection mechanisms rather than hardware for providing protection. In fact, hardware security mechanisms can be critical for the construction of a secure system. ...