Classic BBC Documentary by Adam Curtis available on the Internet Archive on the use of fear as a political tool, especially relevent to the first decade of the 21st Century in the West.

This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today. From the introduction to Part 1:

“Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created todays nightmare vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. ” The Power of Nightmares, Baby It’s Cold Outside.

Maintaining an orderly, peaceful, safe, and productive society will increasingly depend on maintaining trust in information systems. However, trust cannot be realized by technology alone. The notion of trust extends far beyond the narrow technical realms of information security. Engineering trustworthy systems requires an understanding of human psychology. It requires effective public policies and laws and must work within those policies and laws. It requires the right business models and incentives. And often, one needs all of these elements working in harmony. But the reality we witness today is different. Engineers work primarily with technical specifications to build information systems, and their success is often measured by purely technical metrics. This approach, by itself, does not address the broader issues that contribute to trust. To build a successful technology-enabled society, the entire cyber security paradigm must be re-examined and integrated with broader issues.

CRISSP combines security technology strengths with experts in psychology, law, public policy, and business from NYU. The goal of this center is to build new approaches to security and privacy that recognize that technology alone cannot provide the information security and privacy needed in today’s interconnected world. The center is founded by Anindya Ghose (NYU Stern), Ramesh Karri (NYU Poly), Nasir Memon (NYU Poly), Helen Nissenbaum (NYU Steinhardt), and Rae Zimmerman (NYU Wagner).

RT @macon44: We've posted the graphics from the enhanced #SOTU to @slideshare