1) The document discusses potential issues with overreliance on standards and methods in computer science and information systems. It argues that strict adherence to standards can increase failure risks and limit innovation. 2) Some standards are proposed before the concepts they aim to standardize are fully developed or widely adopted, called "standards of fantasy." This can misdirect significant resources into unrealistic projects. 3) The document draws parallels between overreliance on standards in computer science and the misuse of methods in the financial sector that contributed to the financial crisis, such as securitization obscuring risks. Overall it argues for more liberal and human-centered approaches to programming instead of rigid standardization.

1. Are Standards and Methods the next Madoff Pyramid in Computer Science ?
Jean Rohmer
jean.rohmer@fr.thalesgroup.com
Centre of Technologies for Information Analysis
Thales Colombes France
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Extended Abstract submitted to ETHICOMP 2010
By Jean Rohmer
Email: jean.rohmer@fr.thalesgroup.com
Position: Scientific Advisor
Affiliation: Thales Communications
Address: 160 Boulevard de Valmy 92704 Colombes Cedex France
Tel: +33663446484
I will be present at the conference if this paper is accepted.
Are Standards and Methods the next Madoff Pyramid in Computer Science ?
Jean Rohmer
jean.rohmer@fr.thalesgroup.com
Centre of Technologies for Information Analysis
Thales Colombes France
Applying standards and methods is a must in modern society. However, in the domain of
information processing systems or of computer-automated systems, we have observed that
misuse or abuse of standards and methods can lead to very negative effects. We consider that
contemporary misuse of standards may offend elementary scientific and technical ethics. In
this note, we concentrate on these negative aspects, and we will not balance them with their
positive ones. Among our concerns:
1)standards and methods may prevent a project / product from succeeding
If you ask designers of successful software products or services, they often explain that their
secret is “never use standards” : they are too slow, change too often by keeping to fashion,
the tools supposed to support them are faulty. They deliberately develop programs their own
way, using tools tailored to their needs and fine-tuned year after year. Alternatively, when

2. programmers are urged by to stick to standards, the risk of failure increases. Our own
experience in managing large advanced software projects leads to the same conclusions.
This is a problem for the conduct of scientific and technical projects: should a developer
accept to comply with standards knowing it will impair the process, should management take
the risk of departing from the common policy knowing that opinion –or justice- can blame
this decision?
2) standards and methods may be an obstacle to innovation and they decrease human skills
Standards are designed to do standard things the standard way. If the standard you use is at
low-level enough, it may be a good launching pad, but a high-level standard confines you in
somebody else clothes and ideas. People lose their freedom, their responsibility, they stop to
learn by try and errors. Moreover, management believe that, since there exist standards, all
problems are solved by advance. In their eyes, standards depreciate the work of their
employees, which become interchangeable.
3) standards and methods may create the illusion of scientific progress
Historically, standards were created after something had been invented and broadly adopted,
to make its variants compatible. Recently, some authors found it faster to invent the standard
first, make enough buzz around it, justifying more and more investments from governments
and economy to reach the self -claimed Graal. We call them standards of fantasy. For
instance, this is happening for years around the so-called “Semantic Web” W3C standards,
which claim to make the Web an intelligent unified shared database at the scale of the Planet
simply by the magic of standardizing the representation of elementary information.
One of the bad consequences of such standards of fantasy, is that thousands of people
generate research projects of fantasy, from the sole belief that in the future theses standards
will give birth to a reality. Research becomes standardized, researchers become standardized,
research programs become standardized … Then indeed standardized rhymes with sterilized.
In such circumstances, ethics urges to resist to standards. And any scientific community
should examine itself accordingly.
Standards of fantasy survive and flourish by creating vicious –not for them- circles: more
and more projects are justified by the existence of these standards, which in their turn boast of
their adoption by more and more projects.
A this point, it is tempting to make a parallel with the current financial crisis. Abuse of
methods, abuse of standards, may lead to a spiral of catastrophes. If we play this game, we
can develop the analogy:
-- giving a method to people is like lending them experience, knowledge, intelligence they are
missing, and that they will not be able to refund, except at the price of adopting another
method supposed to correct the bad consequences of the first one, as subscribing a new loan.
In another words, a kind of Ponzi pyramide.
-- the method of splitting a given activity or project into many sub-activities or subprojects
delegated to third parties is like securitization in finance . This is frequent in engineering with
cascades of subcontracting, and in cooperative research projects with too many partners. Each
partner is chosen because it is supposed to excel in applying such or such submethod. Finally,
risks are diluted and nobody knows where they hide.
-- fiscal paradises, money laundering also exist in the world of standards and methods: their
name is Powerpoint presentations: by using formatted ways of writing and communicating,

3. they transform poor content, empty ideas into the appearance of professionalism and trusted
knowledge.
-- junk bonds are simply the standards of fantasy mentioned earlier
-- finally, the cement of this analogy is the existence in both sides of a pensée unique : the
belief in standards and methods versus the belief in extreme liberalism and deregulation (a
kind of paradox )
To conclude on a positive note, we propose that a way to escape the crisis created by abuse of
standards and methods, it to reempower all actors of information systems. We must stop
imposing programmers standards of programming which cripple them, and in fact have the
only aim of preventing them from programming, by fear of their potential mistakes. And if we
fear we fail. We must encourage liberal rather than carceral programming. We must also
propose end-users themselves tools to let them become programmers of their own
knowledge, rather than simple consumers of online information. In this direction, we advocate
in other publications -under the expression of litteratus calculus- for using natural language
and dialogue as the ultimate standards, standards built by human history, and which span
from millennium to millennium.