The New York Times recently ran an interesting profile of Peter Neumann, one of the preeminent computer scientists in the world. The story, “Killing the Computer to Save it,” details Neumann’s ideas for how to solve the inherent security vulnerabilities in computer systems that have been repeated again and again for the past 50+ years. Neumann’s thesis, essentially, is that simplicity is the key to security — advice that’s been mostly lost on the computer industry since its inception. John Markoff of the New York Times writes: “’[Neumann’s] biggest contribution is to stress the ‘systems’ nature of the security and reliability problems,” said Steven M. Bellovin, chief technology officer of the Federal Trade Commission. “That is, trouble occurs not because of one failure, but because of the way many different pieces interact.” ... Dr. Bellovin said that it was Dr. Neumann who originally gave him the insight that.