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Security is about control: insights from cybernetics

Published:19 April 2016Publication History

ABSTRACT

Cybernetic closed loop regulators are used to model socio-technical systems in adversarial contexts. Cybernetic principles regarding these idealized control loops are applied to show how the incompleteness of system models enables system exploitation. We consider abstractions as a case study of model incompleteness, and we characterize the ways that attackers and defenders interact in such a formalism. We end by arguing that the science of security is most like a military science, whose foundations are analytical and generative rather than normative.

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            cover image ACM Other conferences
            HotSos '16: Proceedings of the Symposium and Bootcamp on the Science of Security
            April 2016
            138 pages
            ISBN:9781450342773
            DOI:10.1145/2898375

            Copyright © 2016 ACM

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            Publication History

            • Published: 19 April 2016

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