Friday, August 11, 2006

is my research pointless?














Alla Genkina said...

It seems to me that you have fallen into one of the graduate student pitfalls aka "I must save the world, otherwise my research is meaningless". But I don't think that is necessary true. Your research does not have to be revolutionary and thus change the face of computer security. It should however forward thinking in some way so as to enable eventual change. It is really rare for any piece of research or thinking to truly make an immediate impact.

Lets take the Cheese Nun as an example. She would never have been able to do her work if the knowledge on microbiology did not exist. Do you think the first people to look at fungi thought they would revolutionize the world? Probably not. But eventually the aggregate knowledge does make a change.

So then I ask, is it so bad to a cog in the machine? Aren't we really just attempting to create a chain of knowledge that will lead to further progress?

Thus, the final answer really comes down to your research being meaninful in some way to YOU. Hopefully, it gives you a sense of accomplishment, but it certainly doesn't need to change the face of computer security.

Additionally, you mentioned that the regular Joe will never understand the complexity of security and that they will start being dependent on a few experts to manage their IDs. Perhaps then you might want to think of ways to teach/empower/free the user from this dependance, and thus help steer the field in a direction away from "infinite complexity and obscurity".

Sorry for the lenghy comment, hits close to home since I am starting my dissertation now too :)

Sid Stamm said...

Thanks for the kind words, Alla. I agree, that pitfall of saving the world is a bad one, but I am not really trying to fall in that pit...

I express angst because I feel like I'm solving problems that will be forgotten about in a few years. I'm not talking about something people will take for granted -- I am talking about solving problems that won't be problems anymore in a few years: band-aid solutions.

And I think you misunderstood one of my points... I don't really believe that Joe will depend on experts to *manage* his ID's, rather, to keep him and his money safe. The problem is not that computer people are doing computer jobs, but it is that computer people are also doing bank security guard jobs, election official jobs, emergency alert jobs, etc. This thin spread of computer experts scares me. And this infinte complexity and obscurity I talk about... well, that's a problem with using computers for *everything* and a side-effect of them being faster and more spacious; digital sloppiness, if you will.

Don't get me started on user education, either... unless they're computer scientists, education rarely works.

Thanks for the long comment, it is appropriate for the lengthy post. :)