6. The Skill of Cybersecurity: Adversarial Thinking 133 agreement with our partner in crime on the way to the police station! But the tension illustrated in the prisoner’s dilemma actually occurs frequently in the real world. For example, doping in sports (e.g., cheating by taking performance enhancing drugs), is a real-life prisoner’s dilemma. If no athletes dope, everybody would be better off because they would not have to deal with the health consequences of taking performance enhancing drugs, and all of the athletes would still be competing on a level playing field. This is the [C, C] outcome. However, this leaves the door open for cheaters (defectors) to gain an upper-hand and outperform better athletes! In sports, not doping is an unstable outcome—there is an incentive pulling athletes towards cheating, especially if they suspect other athletes may be cheating. This results in many defectors, making everybody worse off. Former Major League Baseball player Lenny Dykstra captured this tension well in a surprisingly candid interview. When he was asked if he ever used a relatively mild performance enhancing drug called human growth hormone (HGH) when he played baseball, he replied, “I put that in my cereal man. It was in my cereal...Come on, HGH? Nah, we’re talking about the good stuff, you know? Deca durabolin and testosterone and anadrol [strong steroids]. We’re talking about the difference of making thirty million or getting a real job and working and making sixty thousand…Do you want the guy next to you taking them and you’re not going to take them?”2 (emphasis added) The prisoner’s dilemma tension is also felt by college students. They face a prisoner’s dilemma when it comes to academic integrity. It is tempting for college students to compromise their integrity if they suspect that other students may be doing less work but earning better grades due to cheating. To be a cooperator while others defect feels unfair, and it provides a convenient rationalization for cheating. The prisoner’s dilemma perfectly illustrates why character is prized by society and those that exhibit it are highly esteemed—it highlights temptation and the real costs that sometimes come from choosing character. 6.2.1 Real Life Through the Lens of Game Theory “All models are wrong, but some are useful” - George E.P. Box The previous section started with a theoretical game and then showed how it applies to real life. In this section, we begin with a real-life situation that on the surface appears like it has nothing to do with game theory, but then we analyze it in terms of players, interdependent choices, and utility preferences to try and predict the outcome. The Hebrew Bible records the story of King Solomon, an Israelite king who was renowned throughout the ancient world for his wisdom. His wise insight is famously illustrated in an account known as Solomon’s Wise Ruling. 2 From an interview on The Herd with Colin Cowherd, May 17, 2016.
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