The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two
This wikipedia entry is about an article written by George A. Miller, a cognitive psychologist. He proposed Miller's law. A law that states that an average human can retain 7 (plus or minus 2) objects in working memory. Since this article, there has been further research that disagrees with the "magical number 7", suggesting maybe it's a "magical number 4", but others say this is also too high. The wiki entry concludes by stating that further research shows that it might be the size, rather than the number of objects that make a difference in enhanced memory.
It was an interesting read, but I'm not sure how this relates to the other articles...
This article, as the title implies, goes through the security and privacy vulnerabilities of wireless networks within an automobile. Specifically they do an in-depth look at the tire pressure monitoring system, or TPMS. It's interesting that this feature was first added to automobiles for increased safety and efficiency, but as shown in the article, it can actually be a tool for wrongdoers. It can help wrongdoers track automobiles and enable them to trick a driver to pull-over and check their tires (giving them an opportunity to attack and pillage). This article covers the analysis of two popular TPMS systems used in many vehicles in the US mainly for security and privacy issues. They test the systems, find flaws within the systems, and recommend changes that can make these systems more private and more secure.
It's a bit scary to think that a tool that was intended to increase security and efficiency can actually make you more vulnerable to security and privacy issues because proper security and privacy testing was not done by the engineers. This article was written in 2010 and it mentions that starting in 2012 the European Union is mandating that all new vehicles have TPMS. I hope they made these more secure.
The author, Mike Wood, talks about inevitable failure and how to deal with it. He recommends lots of failure assessment testing, finding all the faults, and deciding how to deal with them.
I think it's important to remember that "there are a lot more possible failure points than the ones you have caught gracefully as exceptions in your code."
In the TPMS article, there is much security and privacy testing done, which lead to suggested solutions to these problems. Also in the cloud applications article, the author recommends plenty of testing to find and resolve "holes" in the system. Trying to tie in the magical number seven article- maybe the fact that with further research, other conclusions/ results were reached about working memory. The magical number 7 article was not taken as fact just because one researcher reached that conclusion. Failure/misuse of systems will happen, there needs to be thorough testing to enable engineers to find resolutions to the problems. Using the scientific method during testing, can decrease problems within the system.
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