Experts and researchers in several disciplines could contribute to this research, in addition to computer scientists on the technical aspects. Risk analysis and cost/benefit analysis would fall to economists, who would set the parameters on the acceptable costs and cost recovery mechanisms. The organizational structures that would most effectively realize the security functions—including, for example, human interventions —could be studied by business. Motivations and scenarios for attack could be provided by political scientists, allowing the range of possibilities to be narrowed. In the case of individual vandals and hackers, psychological profiles and likely behavior patterns would be very useful input.

1. The researchers are David Messerschmitt, Michael Katz, and Joseph Farrell from the University of California at Berkeley, Sergio Verdu from Princeton, and Jean-Pierre Hubaux from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.