From: Michael Gilhespy (gilhespyquicknet.nl)
Date: Mon Dec 13 2010 - 09:21:37 CST

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On 12/12/2010 07:38 PM, Konrads Smelkovs wrote:
>
> I am not sure I agree with that. One of the saddest moments
> in my academic life was realising that the choice of PhD is
> dictated for the majority of non-brilliant students (of which,
> sadly, I was part) not by the advancement of science but by
> the fastest route to achieve a thesis which will pass muster.
> You therefore look for problems which are obscure, hidden
> somewhere and with next to no chance of having any importance
> except to close a border case. The impression I have is: lots
> of border cases in academia when it comes to security.
>
>
> This sounds very sad. If PhD's in security are valued so low, then
> imagine the amount of waste put into producing masters' thesises and
> even bachelors'. If this list thinks it knows enough about real world
> problems that need researching, then how about producing a list of
> Dailydave approved research topics in form of thesis titles and maybe
> few pointers in the right direction?
> --
I'll throw in 2 cents worth. I'm in full time employment and am a part
time student, working (painfully slowly) towards a PhD (digital
forensics - choice not predicated on by anything but personal desire).
I don't see anything wrong at all with the focus on border cases in
academia. I work in the availability corner of the infosec CIA triad -
in an admittedly highly specialized role - but I think it's worth saying
that 100% of my day to day work consists of those "corner cases" or
"border cases" or "cascade failures", that Taleb would probably call
"black swans" and which I wish someone had foreseen and written a paper on.

Mike G

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