Ratchets & Levers

I wrote this post in 2016, more than 8 years ago. It may be very out of date, partially or totally incorrect. I may even no longer agree with this, or might approach things differently if I wrote this post today. I rarely edit posts after writing them, but if I have there'll be a note at the bottom about what I changed and why. If something in this post is actively harmful or dangerous please get in touch and I'll fix it.

There are a couple of metaphors that tend to guide my thinking about the practice of security: ratchets and levers.

Ratchets

Dr. Schorsch, CC-BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A ratchet is a kind of one-way gear, with angled teeth and a pawl that allows motion in one direction only. In the physical world we use ratchets to help lift or move heavy loads. Using a ratchet, we can overcome the massive inertia of a heavy object by breaking the movement down into small, easy, irreversible steps.

I think about ratchets when when I’m trying to improve some sub-optimal system. Organizations and systems have their own kinds of inertia, so sometimes it can be difficult or impossible to improve all in one go. So, I try to think: how can I break this improvement down into a series of ratchet-like steps? The key is that each step should be:

Small, so that it can be accomplished quickly. Success builds on itself, so I prefer small steps with a high chance of success to big risky ones.
Easy, so that there’s little or no organizational inertia to overcome.
Irreversible, so that we can’t backslide between steps, and so that we can take breaks between steps.

Levers

Mechanics Magazine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A lever is the simplest sort of physical machine: just a bar and a pivot point. Levers amplify force: a small amount of force applied to the long end of the lever is multiplied at the short end. Using a lever lets us multiply our force, many times.

I think about leverage when I’m trying to prioritize security work. There always seems to be a massive backlog of potential security work, so how do we decide what’s most important? For me, the answer becomes clear when I try to focus on the work with the most leverage.

Some kinds of work provide more leverage – by which I mean: they multiply the force put in. For example, consider a few different approaches to authentication security:

I could review pull requests dealing with authentication. In doing so, my leverage is minimal: my hour of work doesn’t really save any other work organizationally, and I’ll need to review similar pull requests again in the future.
I could write a guide to reviewing pull authentication correctly. In doing so, I increase my impact: now, anyone who reads that guide is more likely to implement authentication correctly (reducing future review time), and anyone who reads that guide is a potential review-er of future requests (increasingly the PR-review “force”).
I could write a library to make correct authentication Just Work™. This has the most impact: once this work has been done the one time, the problem is solved for good; only very minimal future work is required.

Each option requires more up-front work than previous one, but each also pays increasing dividends. So, to decide between them, I can think about the leverage each provides – which has the best ratio between up-front work and future-saved-work? By choosing the option with the best leverage, I can be fairly sure I’m using my time most effectively.