Links von Mittwoch, 1. Juli 2009

Donnerstag, 2. Juli 2009

Gesammelte Links von Mittwoch, 1. Juli 2009:

  • Schneier on Security: Security, Group Size, and the Human Brain

    If the size of your company grows past 150 people, it’s time to get name badges. It’s not that larger groups are somehow less secure, it’s just that 150 is the cognitive limit to the number of people a human brain can maintain a coherent social relationship with.

    This number appears regularly in human society; it’s the estimated size of a Neolithic farming village, the size at which Hittite settlements split, and the basic unit in professional armies from Roman times to the present day. Larger group sizes aren’t as stable because their members don’t know each other well enough. Instead of thinking of the members as people, we think of them as groups of people. For such groups to function well, they need externally imposed structure, such as name badges.

    [Aber die schönste Sicherheit nützt nix, wenn die Bauarbeiter geschlampt haben: unsere schönen neuen Büros sind jetzt evakuiert, weil uns die Decke auf den Kopf gefallen ist.]

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