Oh, I mean, I'm fully aware of the emphasis on codebreaking and on areas like operations research that provide optimization tools for tacticians, not to mention

Oh, I mean, I'm fully aware of the emphasis on codebreaking and on areas like operations research that provide optimization tools for tacticians, not to mention the ITAR restrictions on crypto export. (I was there when only 40-bit SSL was unrestricted! I very much remember those days! They sucked!) I guess the hangup I have is that my forays into areas like differential geometry and algebraic topology are extremely abstract, and I cannot control anyone who isn't me who misuses those tools in decidedly not-sober ways. I can only make sure that I don't have a direct hand in that kind of misuse.