I just finishing giving a third version of a presentation that I put together on lessons Infosec/Risk/Platform owners can learn from classic Operations Research/Management Science type work. The talk (“Operating * By the Numbers”) was shared in Reykjavik (Nordic Security Conference), Seattle (SIRACon 2013), and in Silicon Valley (BayThreat). Thanks everyone who attended, especially those of you who asked questions and provided feedback.

A few folks have asked for reading lists. Some asked for the quick run-through sample from my bookshelf, others want some further reading. Here’s the quick run through:

• Introduction to Mathematical Statistics and Its Applications (5th Edition), Richard J. Larsen and Morris L. Marx
• Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World, Kevin Kelly
• The Illuminatus! Trilogy Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
• How to Protect Yourself from Crime, Ira Lipman (Guardsmark)
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution – 25th Anniversary Edition, Steven Levy
• Computer Crime: A Crimefighter’s Handbook, David Icove, Karl Seger, William VonStorch
• Maximum Security: A Hacker’s Guide to Protecting Your Internet Site and Network, Anonymous
• Information Security Risk Analysis, Thomas R Peltier
• A First Course in Probability, Sheldon Ross
• Strategy, Basil H. Liddell Hart
• Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s Companion, Joshua D. Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke
• The Dilbert Principle, Scott Adams
• Introduction to Topology: Third Edition, Bert Mendelson
• Exploratory Data Analysis (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences), Frederick Hartwig with Brian E Dearing
• Game Theory Evolving: A Problem-Centered Introduction to Modeling Strategic Interaction (Second Edition), Herbert Gintis
• Practical Statistics Simply Explained (Dover Books on Mathematics), Russell Langley
• Excel Data Analysis For Dummies, Stephen Nelson
• Operations Management: Contemporary Concepts, Roger Schroeder

And I also want to give another shout-out to Combat Modeling, by Alan Washburn and Moshe Kress, of the Naval Postgraduate School. It’s a pricey text, but take a look at the table of contents & the topics they cover. Really interesting work to consider for control system designers.

Also, I haven’t read these personally but they are on my “to read” list as they came recommended by fellow quant/risk nerds:

• The Principles and Applications of Decision Analysis : 2 Volume Set, Ronald A. Howard and James E. Matheson
• Decision Analysis for the Professional (pdf link), Peter McNamee & John Celona

And here’s a link to one of my blog posts (Quant Ops), which includes a few references and some thinking on the topic from a different angle.