Peter Neumann has died

RISKS Digest got me started too. I think there are some things best learned from the very beginning. "Consider modes of failure" is probably my favourite piece of security advice.

Fun How long do you think that took you?

Another thing to appreciate while reading is that Risks started pre-Web, when the Internet was a much smaller place, so PGN's work on Risks was well-known, and presumably influenced the thinking of a lot of people.

As one example, I bumped into Risks in my teens (I think through Usenet comp.risks), at the internship start of my software engineering career. I now think back to things I said and did back then, and the formative influence of Risks is unmistakable.

Correctness? Safety? Security? Privacy? Societal implications? Responsibility?

The MBA-ification of the Internet came later, but before that, PGN helped educate and guide a generation of Internet-savvy people in the best direction.

I haven't seen it mentioned here or in the obituaries, but Peter started the RISKS Digest in 1985 partly in response to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, "Star Wars") which proposed a space-based anti-ballistic missile system run autonomously by computers [1]. Another response was the formation of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibilty (CPSR) [2]. Peter was an early member, and many early RISKS submissions were by CPSR members.

Peter's letter to readers about the creation of RISKS in Issue #1.01 [3] mentions SDI and CPSR (it's long, scroll down)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative

2.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Professionals_for_Soc...

3. https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/1.01.html

> This is the first issue of a new on-line forum. Its intent is to address issues involving risks to the public in the use of computers. As such, it is necessarily concerned with whether/how critical requirements for human safety, reliability, fault tolerance, security, privacy, integrity, and guaranteed service (among others) can be met (in some cases all at the same time), and how the attempted fulfillment or ignorance of those requirements may imply risks to the public. We will presumably explore both deficiencies in existing systems and techniques for developing better computer systems — as well as the implications of using computer systems in highly critical environments.

^ 1985, 2 years before i was born, on-line still had a dash. Man, what a time that must've been.

> Although there is an element of apparent sloppiness in many creative people, discipline is also required. (Note that time-sharing has been condemned by some as encouraging sloppiness, as opposed to batch processing [where sloppiness can be exceedingly costly in time and computing resources]. Perhaps time-sharing could actually encourage creativity, although there is the countering argument that computers intrinsically stifle creativity.) Similarly, diversity of experience also appears to be extremely important (e.g., [Sheppard]); the perspective afforded by familiarity with a variety of systems, subsystems, programming languages, and methodologies provides extremely valuable insights, especially where there is wide diversity (e.g., among TOPS-20, Multics, UNIX, and OS/370; SCRIBE, TEX, PUB and ROFF; Pascal-based languages and LISP; a formal methodology/specification language and conventional design).

I will think “Agentic Engineering” is the “time-sharing” of our time. Embrace it.

Conclusion of the article (Wisdom from 1982):

> There is an old adage (e.g., Zen) to the effect that we become what we perceive. In computer terms, our (human) outputs become identified with our inputs. Computer technology is exceedingly habit forming, and our civilization seems to be becoming more computer-like, in the name of "progress". Many people tend to identify with their computers, while others become more computer-dependent, willingly or unwillingly. In addition, the so-called "factory experience" has an antihuman element to it. Although it could indeed help to reduce repetitiveness, it must also allow a suitable role for creativity. (In the spirit of this paper we note that unbridled attempts at creativity can often be detrimental, resulting in obfuscational terminology that masks an absence of novelty, or the reinvention of suboptimal or intermediate steps that have previously been discarded by others for subtle reasons not perceived by the "reinventor".) Thus, it is incumbent on system designers and system development managers to understand the negative effects of the use of computers, and to attempt to minimize those negative effects. In this way, it should be possible to increase incentives, challenges, and satisfaction, to reduce boredom, burnout, and laziness, and generally to increase the effectiveness of computer developers and users.

It feels as though an entire era is fading day by day

he has died as well