Practicing a Science of Security A Philosophy of Science Perspective Jonathan M. Spring Tyler Moore David Pym University College London The University of Tulsa University College London Gower Street 800 South Tucker Drive London WC1E 6BT London WC1E 6BT Tulsa, OK 74104-9700 Alan Turing Institute
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT Experiments Structured observations of the empirical are untenable world Our goal is to refocus the question about cybersecurity re- Reproducibility Evaluate by repetition, replication, varia- search from ‘is this process scientific’ to ‘why is this scientific is impossible tion, reproduction, and/or corroboration process producing unsatisfactory results’. We focus on five No laws of common complaints that claim cybersecurity is not or can- Mechanistic explanation of phenomena nature not be scientific. Many of these complaints presume views to make nature intelligible No single associated with the philosophical school known as Logical Em- Specialization necessitates translation ontology piricism that more recent scholarship has largely modified or rejected. Modern philosophy of science, supported by mathe- ‘Just’ Both science and engineering are neces- matical modeling methods, provides constructive resources engineering sary to mitigate all purported challenges to a science of security. Table 1: Five common complaints raised by the science of cy- Therefore, we argue the community currently practices a bersecurity community and positive reframing from the phi- science of cybersecurity. A philosophy of science perspective losophy of science literature. suggests the following form of practice: structured observa- tion to seek intelligible explanations of phenomena, evaluating explanations in many ways, with specialized fields (including engineering and forensics) constraining explanations within Its proponents claim a science of security is needed for ongo- their own expertise, inter-translating where necessary.