Schneier on Security

Davi Ottenheimer • January 21, 2005 12:59 PM

I am curious about the data/assumptions that the report is based upon. The CIA “factbook” has been notoriously prone to error (among other well-known gaps in intelligence reports) so I can’t help but wonder about these predictions based on a couple years of foreign conferences and papers…how do we check for reliable and credible sources?

I mean, the report says (page 22) that “The United States increasingly will have to battle world public opinion…[because] the younger generation of leaders — unlike the post-World War II perior — has no personal recollection of the United States as its ‘liberator’ and is more likely to diverge with Washington’s thinking on a range of issues.”

Or maybe this new generation of leaders is wary of an American President who claims that “America’s struggle with the world” has been ordained by God?

The report itself cites the Pew Research survey of attitudes around the world that found sharply rising anti-Americanism by people who place a high value on democratic values as freedom of expression, press, multiparty systems, and equal treatment under the law.

Putting that hot potato aside, if you run the report’s online “simulator” (http://www.ifs.du.edu/frm_run.aspx), you get the following scenarios, none of which seemed to map directly to the report itself (e.g. “potential biotechnology and IT intrustions into privacy”):
Technological Change
Environmental Uncertainties
Households/Individuals
Governments/Socio-Political Systems
Firms/Businesses
Selected Initial Conditions
Relationship Parameters

After poking around I thought “households/individuals” might be the closest thing, especially since you can select “values”. But you only get three choices:
Materialism/postmaterialist value
Survival/self-expression
Traditional/secular-rational

Do traditional/secular-rational values also include neoconservative values used in the 2004 Presidential election? Does privacy fall under “survival”, or will it be there by 2020?

Oddly, if you actually start a simulation, it gives you:
D:\www_root\IFS_root\ifs\RUNFILES\Session00\IFSBASE.RUN

Interesting stuff. Thanks Bruce.