Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • July 30, 2009 1:56 AM

I suspect the problem is realy to do with a “conflict of culture”.

The clue is in,

‘”At the end of the day, I think they were somewhat surprised at how bold and how bright it was,” said Les Shepherd, the chief architect of the General Services Administration’

Hmm let me think, did it kind of stand out in a way that was “not fitting with it’s setting” or as we would say in England “Like a pimple on a pig’s backside”.

There is probably nothing wrong with the building it probably has “architectural merit” as a modern design, but up on the border it is just plain wrong, and in the setting it has been placed in it realy is a major “eye sore” and as such realy does attract “unwanted attention”.

We have similar problems in the UK with Lord Rogers (architect) and Prince Charles. Lord Rogers likes Glass and Steel as “Exciting and modern making a bold statment”, Prince Charles sees it as being significantly out of place in a “traditional setting” such as a Cathedral or Georgian square.

It’s a culture clash, one see’s their design as a counterpoint between the future and the past, the other as desecration.

Try seeing it from the bod on the “front lines” place, imagine you are sitting there dealing with Joe Public day after day each face new but making the same “Smart Alec” comment comparing the sign on your building to a “Golden Arches” drive through.

How long before you would want to be out there either with the “crowbar” (prybar) or “holding the ladder” for the bloke that is.

Yes the people working their feel like they are targets much as you would if you had to sit at the security desk of a traditional style bank where everybody is wearing sober business suits appropriate to the setting and you have to wear bright yellow spandex like a Glam Rock Star.

Everybody in the area of the sign knows the sign just does not fit.

But for the person in a high place far away who has decided for whatever reason it’s “exciting and modern”….

The only way you siting under the sign could get rid of it is by comming up with a sufficiently compeling reason to get over the entrenched “exciting and modern” idea.

I can immagine what starts as somebody “under the sign” phoning their imediate boss who’s in another place and saying “what on earth made XXX think this is a good idea?”. The boss in order to pour “oil on troubled waters” would make some soothing comments and finding it’s fire not water they are pouring the oil on, asks “well whats wrong with it”. The poor bod who feels like he’s under a curse not a sign and who has had enough would say something like “Don’t you understand it’s like a custom made target for people to snipe at” meaning “It makes every bozo make the same dum comment, clever and the guys here have had enough”.

The immedate boss “gets the message” and phones up the beuracratic tree. The message arives at YYY who gets told “This high visability sign makes our staff easy targets sooner or later there is going to be an embarising incident”.

They hear the message not for what it actually is but as a “beuracratic CYA” way of saying “it’s a significant security risk and you’d better act before it happens”. YYY puts 2 and 2 together and come up with 7 phones XXX and says “I’ve been told that that new sign is a significant security risk” XXX either ask’s “what sort” or thinks “terrorist” as that’s the current “significant security risk” they think of…

Then somebody let’s a “gentalman of the Press know” that an expensive new sign is being taken down shortly after it’s been put up. They smell a story and rather than go and see they start asking questions in a certain way and get a headline sound bite.