Reading Kelsey’s twitter and thinking about the connection between public health communication and computer security communication. A common meme in public health is something like “we need to go slowly and cautiously and consider all of the concerns in order for the public to trust us”, which turns out to be the opposite of correct—the thing where the public health authorities go slowly and cautiously cause the public to, on net, think the thing is dangerous.
The computer security professional is typically in the opposite boat: they want the public to think the thing is more dangerous than it naively seems. [“No, using ‘password’ as your password will bite you.”] If presented with an argument that a methodology should be used because it increases trust, they might look at you like you grew another head; “why would I want to increase trust?”
Is this what’s happening for public health people, where they’re much more used to thinking about how drugs and treatments and so on can go wrong? Or is it just a standard incompetence / confusion story?
Reading Kelsey’s twitter and thinking about the connection between public health communication and computer security communication. A common meme in public health is something like “we need to go slowly and cautiously and consider all of the concerns in order for the public to trust us”, which turns out to be the opposite of correct—the thing where the public health authorities go slowly and cautiously cause the public to, on net, think the thing is dangerous.
The computer security professional is typically in the opposite boat: they want the public to think the thing is more dangerous than it naively seems. [“No, using ‘password’ as your password will bite you.”] If presented with an argument that a methodology should be used because it increases trust, they might look at you like you grew another head; “why would I want to increase trust?”
Is this what’s happening for public health people, where they’re much more used to thinking about how drugs and treatments and so on can go wrong? Or is it just a standard incompetence / confusion story?