SoK: Science, Security and the Elusive Goal of Security as a Scientific Pursuit

The past ten years has seen increasing calls to make security research more “scientific”. On the surface, most agree that this is desirable, given universal recognition of “science” as a positive force. However, we find that there is little clarity on what “scientific” means in the context of computer security research, or consensus on what a “Science of Security” should look like. We selectively review work in the history and philosophy of...