Software patterns have been used to guide developers and to disseminate expert knowledge. But patterns can also be thought of as program transformations. Security patterns are architectural. Therefore, program transformations derived from those patterns transform architecture. This paper describes how we used a catalog of security patterns to produce a catalog of security-oriented program transformations. These transformations can be used to make architectural changes that make systems more secure. This paper is a first example of applying patterns to actively transform architectures.

Fred Brooks' retelling of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel offers many insights into what makes building software difficult. The difficulty, according to common interpretations, comes from the communication and organizational problems in software development. But the story contains one more important lesson that people tend to miss: one cannot accomplish impossible goals, which programmers are often asked to do. Software engineering, as a discipline, can overcome poor communication; but as long as we attempt to live up to impossible expectations, we will always fail.