Complexity Is the Enemy

We have just had the greatest proof by demonstration of the proposition that complexity is the enemy of security, that complexity is the generator of surprise-the meltdown in the global financial system. Looking at n-level-deep derivatives, we don't have a way to see who does or does not have a foreclosure risk, so we flush it all. Only there are seemingly but two ways to flush the financial pipeline-a 1929-style crash or a willing buyer of all the tainted bonds. Today, we have a financial system that's global, interconnected, complex, and more prone to cascade failure than when it was not global, when it was not interconnected, and when it was less complex. You either save (patch) the existing system, or you start over. The parallels to our security world are real and precise.