I’m trying to take a wider stance than just infosec. Apply the same idea to philosophy or debate. I make an argument with inherent flaws, you can tear down parts of my argument. Your role as an adversary forces me to redesign, to answer the weaknesses inherent in the argument I make, and ultimately to stop making weak arguments. Arguments on the existence of free will notwithstanding, a world without philosophical adversaries would be nightmarish oppression — a revisitation of Orwell’s 1984, only after the redesign of language was complete and thought opposed to “correct” thinking became linguistically impossible.

Strictly within the realm of computer security, you’re right — attackers make us waste our time defending, slow our communications, and generally give us a bad time. But the adversarial relationship is fundamental to both science and philosophy. Without the ability to take an adversarial role, we have no tools with which to check the validity of the things around us.

I would go so far as to say that the adversarial relationship is the fundamental basis of rational thought.

Finally, a system without adversaries will inevitably pick them up — something the computer world learned from Ken Thompson, if nobody else.

Personally, I find Neitszche’s philosophies worthwhile only when an entire system has endemic flaws and weaknesses. Then does his concepts of completely overthrowing a system and letting creators make things make sense. That’s why I like a representative democracy, since typically anything that’s truly a virus in the system is quickly killed off. Typically anyway …

*wanders off onto tangential thought*

Anyhoots. Good read, archlich. Whether it’s gradual improvements or stark overthrows, adversaries are a good thing, on the whole.