Ep 22: The Fortress Problem is a paradox because defenses create vulnerabilities

Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database

Guest: Jack Anderson, expert in insurance, risk, catastrophe, and security

Peer-reviewed paper: The Fortress Problem

When they rely on robustness or complication, positions of strength are only tolerant of stress up to a defined point or of a certain character. For a fortification that fails to adapt, centralization—even of strength—presents a surprising liability. Fortresses concentrate risk.

A grand design for security will not produce grand security. Security requires fewer scripted plans and more improvisation, more diversity, less uniformity, less training with partners, and more learning to work with strangers.

Articles mentioned in the show:

• My article about The Fortress Problem: Using data to design safer schools

• My article on security screening concentrating risk: Why TSA-style security doesn't work for schools

• Attack Trees and Threat Modeling

• The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons

• The Taming of Chance

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David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.