Schneier on Security

Jesse Thompson • January 18, 2016 4:07 PM

@Daniel

So in the long run what is the use of talking? What is the use of policy when screaming defeats intelligent discussion?

I think that screaming only defeats intelligent discussion so long as we’re dealing with environments and tools so new to us that virtually no people feel truly confident predicting what they will do.

Compare, scenario 1: you are getting your groceries in a Piggly Wiggly. A hundred other shoppers are milling about half asleep behind their carts, getting their own chores out of the way beneath chirpy PA announcements about fresh fish.

A child screams “Let go! let go!” You look down the brightly lit aisle to determine the commotion, and it’s a 4 year old fighting it’s parents to try to get ahold of some chocolate bars.

Do you freak the fsck out and call 911 about child assault, or does the screaming fail to drown out your common sense?

Scenario 2: You are out camping late at night, several RV’s with other families parked within a few hundred feet from you in all directions. You’ve pitched your tent, doused the fire, and curled up into your roll to sleep for the night. Come 2pm, you are knocked rudely awake as your entire tent is torn away from you and you are flipped end to end in your roll. You hear your tent-stakes and tarp jostle against trees a dozen feet away, and a rhythmic fullumping sound of large padded feet galloping away into the distance grunting gutterally.

The overcast sky leaves the world basically pitch black. You fumble around for your torch but only find your phone instead. You aim the screen into the darkness but that only offers you a few feet of view. Your campsite is torn up pretty badly and you can’t work out a bearing to get back to your jeep.

While trying to get the LED-light of the phone to turn on for greater visibility, you hear a child scream “Let go! let go!”. You crane your eyes into that direction but cannot penetrate the night. You hear a roar, and then a shriek that is suddenly cut off by a thud.

Do you freak the fsck out and call 911 about a wild animal attack in the woods, or do you calmly take the time to regain all of your information gathering tools and make a definitive assessment of what’s going on in favor of presuming the worst?

All technology starts new and that makes crimes related to that technology potentially very frightening: especially when it’s your ass on the line every time something negative happens due to abuse of the system, or when people who have only scifi to draw from cannot feel safe about what new powers the supervillians must have this week.

If you’d like examples, look at the attempt to regulate trains in the late 1800’s and automobiles 1900-1914. People were honestly concerned that trains exceeding mind-numbing speeds like 40mph might startle passing people or livestock completely to death, and pedestrians wandered backwards into streets in front of moving cars as if the cars were merely other people (or, to be precise, as if they were quite pedestrian-accustomed horses instead of distracted human pilots of 1 ton deathtanks).

It’s only after we’ve become more accustom to a technology’s capabilities and limitations do we feel “enlightened” about that part of our lives, and less likely to freak the fsck out every time a child screams.