Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • January 15, 2021 9:25 AM

@ Goat, David, TimH, ALL,

The dictionary definition of paranoia rather depends on which dictionary you look in.

However you often find it’s claimed to be a “fear” that is “unreasond” or “irrational” or “Delusional”.

The point most people do not get is that those three words are “Perspective” words. What you regard as unreasoned I might not, this might just because I’ve better sources of information, or wider experience or even highly focused more relevant experience.

I hate to say it but the removal of certain voices from what most thought of as public communications networks was very predictable and you could see it comming months if not years ago[1].

The reason most are uptight about it is it’s their own perspective that was entirely wrong.

So it’s entirely possible for the adult half of an entire nation to be unreasoned, thus delusional and for some to behave irrationaly.

Does that mean the US is as a population paranoid?

No not quite there is the “fear” element to consider. Defining fear is difficult and you need to go to specialised medical dictionaries to see just what fear can encompass.

In essence it is a deliterious effect on the chemical status of the brain caused by a persons ability to look forward in time and perceive consequences of the actions they currently see around them.

The important point is “deleterious” two people can view the same causes entirely differently one as a threat of some kind another as an opportunity. The real difference is the neurological status that causes the chemical changes.

The problem with this is it is entirely possible to see the cause and effects and understand them and respond to them by action. Thus people will assume you are scared or in fear and say you are paranoid.

Well they can and actually are quite frequently wrong. If you can risk manage which is something few can actually do. Your actions are not taken in fear but in mitigation of risk.

The problem then moves to the depth of mitigation. As I keep pointing out there is the “Defence Spending” problem and risk managment is actually nearly all about defence. The problem is you never know if you’ve spent to much or even just enough, in fact most of the time you do not know if you’ve been spending way to little. You actually only find out when somebody decides for some reason to attack you.

So if you effectively spend more on defence than someone else they might think you are being paranoid, actually you might also be spending to little. Eventually one of you is going to get attacked before the other, such is the nature of probability. Depending on who gets attacked then one may laugh at the other… However that would be silly, both should reappraise their defence spending because there is a reasonable chance that the perception of the enemy has changed, thus so should spending priorities.

Thus the same applies to risk managment and back up the tree. Whilst there are some genuine cases of paranoia they are actually quite rare. In most cases when paranoia is called the real problem is in the head not of the person it’s directed at but in the head of the person calling it. So every time you think somebody is paranoid check your knowledge, understanding and thus petspectives are not at fault…

As for the US population, well a lot of them are in fear of the future, but it’s still not paranoia as such. Take a look at the social changes this century in the US and if you are not living in some fear of loosing your job or your life currently, I would suggest you might want to check your point of view…

[1] The problem is §230 of the Communications Decency Act. The perception is it means that there is no moderation required. That is it appears to most that it confers “common carrier” status onto web sites. When in fact it actually does no such thing. It explicitly says that it does not change the status of federal law… So when what looks like activities prohibited by federal law was brought to the site owners attention they actually had no choice but to flick the off switch. Otherwise you can be assured that the site owners would be quite happy not just for the activities to continue but to actually stir them up even more because that’s what brings the revenue through the door.