News: 2023 Archives
The Best Information Security Books of 2023
Excerpt
It’s been a year since I wrote The 5 Best Information Security Books of 2022, two years since The 5 Best Information Security Books of 2021, which was preceded by The Best Information Security Books of 2020 and The Best Information Security Books of 2019. With that, as the year is coming to a close, here’s my list of the Best Information Security Books of 2023.
Information security book of the year
When it comes to information security rock stars, Bruce Schneier is on everyone’s list. He’s written numerous books over the decades, the most important of which may be his classic …
Due to AI, “We Are About to Enter the Era of Mass Spying,” Says Bruce Schneier
Schneier: AI will enable a shift from observing actions to interpreting intentions, en masse.
In an editorial for Slate published Monday, renowned security researcher Bruce Schneier warned that AI models may enable a new era of mass spying, allowing companies and governments to automate the process of analyzing and summarizing large volumes of conversation data, fundamentally lowering barriers to spying activities that currently require human labor.
In the piece, Schneier notes that the existing landscape of electronic surveillance has already transformed the modern era, becoming the business model of the Internet, where our digital footprints are constantly tracked and analyzed for commercial reasons. Spying, by contrast, can take that kind of economically inspired monitoring to a completely new level:…
Leading Public-Interest Technologist Sees National Research Resource as a Potential Foundation for an “AI Public Option”
As a chorus of transatlantic public interest groups calls for governments to build their own bedrock artificial intelligence systems, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Bruce Schneier says the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource backed by key U.S. policymakers could lay the necessary groundwork.
"It’s a start, and [could] serve as a foundation for an AI Public Option," Schneier told Inside AI Policy referring to the NAIRR, a pilot for which is included in the Oct. 30 executive order on artificial intelligence.
The NAIRR has also been highlighted in a series of closed-door AI "insight forums" hosted by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) who has said there was agreement with top Republicans to spend …
Video: The Hacker’s Mind with Bruce Schneier
Watch the Video on YouTube.com
Get ready for an eye-opening chat with the one and only Bruce Schneier, a rock star in the security world! We’re diving deep into some seriously cool stuff – from the mind-bending future of AI in security, insights from his latest page-turner A Hacker’s Mind, to how all this tech stuff really impacts us in the real world. Bruce breaks it down for us, sharing his wisdom on how AI is changing the game in cybersecurity and the nitty-gritty of what makes hackers tick. Plus, we get into the nitty-gritty of making security work for regular folks – it’s all about that sweet spot between being safe and having tech that’s actually easy to use. Whether you’re a tech whiz or just curious about how all this affects your daily life, this episode’s got something for you. So, tune in and join the conversation – it’s going to be as enlightening as it is engaging!…
Audio: How Will AI Affect Democracy
Two AI experts join Governors Bredesen and Haslam to discuss the potential impact of AI on democracy
Listen to the Audio on Baker.UTK.edu
Policymakers are increasingly focused on how to regulate AI, but what impact might AI have on democracy itself? The risks of AI technology for the democratic system, including misinformed voters and manipulated election processes are becoming more evident by the day, but is it all bad news? Dr. Sarah Kreps, a political scientist and director of the Cornell Tech Policy Institute, and Bruce Schneier, a technologist and Harvard Kennedy School lecturer, join Governors Bredesen and Haslam to dig into the good, the bad, and the unknown about how AI will impact democracy…
Audio: AI Can Be Democracy’s Ally, But Not If It Works for Big Tech
Bruce Schneier says we need a public AI option and a regulatory agency to ensure that artificial intelligence becomes a public good.
Listen to the Audio on HKS.Harvard.edu
Kennedy School Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy Bruce Schneier says artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the democratic process in ways that could be good, bad, and potentially mind-boggling. The important thing, he says, will be to use regulation and other tools to make sure that AI tools are working for everyone, and just not for Big Tech companies—a hard lesson we’ve already learned through our experience about social media and other tech tools.
Bruce Schneier’s policy recommendations:…
Audio: Bruce Schneier: A Hacker’s Mind
Listen to the Audio on BlogTalkRadio.com
Security is Fake. Security expert Bruce Schneier reveals the hacker’s mindset, TSA issues, and why kids are the best hackers.
Audio: Techtonic with Mark Hurst
Bruce Schneier appeared on “Techtonic with Mike Hurst” to discuss his book, A Hacker’s Mind.
Audio: Is This a Hack? Saving on McDonald’s Meals. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of “A Hacker’s Mind,” which answers the question.
Audio: Bruce Schneier on Thinking Like Hackers, AI and Rebuilding US Democracy
Listen to the Audio on SimpleCast.com
Security technologist and author Bruce Schneier talks about his latest book, “A Hacker’s Mind,” the potential problems from rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and how to rethink the democratic process. CyberScoop’s Elias Groll talks about the hack that has Microsoft in hot water.
Episode Notes
Thinking like a hacker means finding creative solutions to big problems, discovering flaws in order to make improvements and often subverting conventional thinking. Bruce Schneier, a cryptographer, security professional and author, talks about the benefits for society when people apply that kind of logic to issues other than computers. In an interview with CyberScoop Editor-in-Chief Mike Farrell, he talks about the need to hack Democracy to rebuild it, how to get ahead of the potential peril from AI and the future of technology – both the good and bad. Elias Groll joins the show to discuss the story of a Chinese hack and why it has put Microsoft under a microscope in Washington…
Book Review: A Hacker’s Mind
When asked to name the world’s largest hacking firm, most people would think along the lines of Rapid 7 or Check Point. But in truth, it is Deloitte and PwC who are the largest hacking firms. It’s not because they have so many penetration testers. Instead, it is due to how many accountants and lawyers they employ.
And that is the underlying theme Bruce Schneier makes in his excellent new book A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back (W.W. Norton Publishing). His premise is that hacking is, in fact, a universal trait. While those in the information security field think of hacking in terms of zero days and Windows vulnerabilities, finding gaps in things is a normal human response…
Audio: Is This A Hack? Free Walt Disney World Merchandise. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of “A Hacker’s Mind,” which answers the question. In this episode, we talk about flight tickets and how some travelers are creatively saving money.
Audio: Is This A Hack? Cheaper Flight Tickets. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of “A Hacker’s Mind,” which answers the question. In this episode, we talk about flight tickets and how some travelers are creatively saving money.
Audio: Munk Dialogue with Bruce Schneier
Listen to the Audio on MunkDebates.com
Over the past few months, we’ve heard many warnings about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. But are there some positive aspects about this emerging technology that are being overlooked? On this episode, we’re joined by internationally renowned security technologist Bruce Schneier who argues that dangers associated with Artificial Intelligence are being overblown, and that chatbots like ChatGPT could actually strengthen democracy and restore trust in our governing institutions.
Audio: Bruce Schneier: A Hacker’s Mind
Listen to the Audio on Plutopia.io
Writer, blogger, and author Wendy Grossman, author of net.wars joins Plutopians for a conversation about hacking with Bruce Schneier, an internationally renowned computer security professional and author. Bruce’s latest book, A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend Them Back, is an expanded view of hacks and hackers beyond computers to other kinds of systems, from tax laws to financial markets to politics.
Bruce Schneier:
Things like https are now everywhere. Google is securing email between itself and the other major email providers. And a lot of the passive methods that the NSA used ten years ago aren’t working today. Now, the flip side of this is corporate surveillance has gone from zero to sixty over those ten years, and now, if you are a government, and you want to surveil somebody, you tell Facebook to tell you what they know about them. Or Google, or Apple, or any of those companies…
Audio: What If Generative AI Destroys Biometric Security?
Our podcast on science and technology. This week, we explore the rise of biometric authentication systems—and examine what would happen if hackers who use generative AI were to compromise digital security
Listen to the Audio on Economist.com
RECENT YEARS have seen a boom in biometric security systems—identification measures based on a person’s individual biology—from unlocking smartphones, to automating border controls. As this technology becomes more prevalent, some cybersecurity researchers are worried about how secure biometric data is—and the risk of spoofs. If generative AI becomes so powerful and easy-to-use that deepfake audio and video could hack into our security systems, what can be done?
Bruce Schneier, a security technologist at Harvard University and the author of “A Hacker’s Mind”, explores the cybersecurity risks associated with biometrics, and Matthias Marx, a security researcher, discusses the consequences of bad actors obtaining personal data. If artificial intelligence could overcome security systems, human implants may be used as authentication, according to Katina Michael, a professor at Arizona State University. Plus, Joseph Lindley, a design academic at Lancaster University, proposes how security systems can be better designed to avoid vulnerabilities. To think about practical solutions, Scott Shapiro, professor at Yale Law School and author of “Fancy Bear Goes Phishing”, puts generative AI into the wider context of cybersecurity. Finally, Tim Cross, The Economist’s deputy science editor, weighs up the real-world implications of our thought experiment. Kenneth Cukier hosts. Runtime: 39 mins…
Audio: Is This A Hack? Lower Hotel Costs. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of “A Hacker’s Mind,” which answers the question. In this episode, we talk about hotel costs and how some travelers are getting the most out of their stay.
Book Review: A Hacker’s Mind by Bruce Schneier
I have known Bruce Schneier for many years, and met him most recently just after he gave one of the keynotes at this year’s RSA show. The keynote extends his thoughts in his most recent book, A Hacker’s Mind, which he wrote last year and was published this past winter. (I reviewed some of his earlier works in a blog for Avast here.)
Even if you are new to Schneier, not interested in coding, and aren’t all that technical, you should read his book because he sets out how hacking works in our everyday lives.
He chronicles how hacks pervade our society. You will hear about the term Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich (how Google and Apple and others have hacked and thus avoided paying US taxes), the exploits of the Pudding Guy (the person who hacked American Airlines’ frequent flyer system by purchasing thousands of pudding cups to obtain elite status), or when the St. Louis Browns baseball team hacked things by hiring a 3’7″ batter back in 1951. There are less celebrated hacks, such as when investment firm Goldman Sachs owned a quarter of the total US aluminum supply back in the 2010’s to control its spot price. What was their hack? They moved it around several Chicago-area warehouses each day: the spot price depends on the time material is delivered. Clever, right?…
Audio: Is This A Hack? Increased AirBnB Bookings. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of “A Hacker’s Mind,” which answers the question. In this episode, we talk about AirBnB listings and how some property owners are increasing their property’s occupancy.
Video: AppSec Decoded: Bruce Schneier on the Future of AI
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Bruce Schneier, security technologist, discusses the implications of AI and how AI will impact the workforce.
Audio: Is This A Hack? Cheaper Travel Expenses. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of “A Hacker’s Mind,” which answers the question. In this episode, we talk about travel expenses, and the practice of being strategic about credit card points and miles in order to save on plane tickets.
Bruce Schneier’s Plan to Reinvent Democracy
I have a confession to make: I am a complete Bruce Schneier fanboy. I have been following the cryptographer, Harvard lecturer and privacy specialist for many years, and was delighted to meet him face-to-face at last week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco, where he gave a keynote (registration required) on how to reinvent democracy using cybersecurity concepts. His oeuvre spans decades with numerous books along with his own blog that publishes interesting links to security-related events, strategies and failures that you should follow.
Schneier began his talk by saying that “the political systems that were invented in the 18…
Audio: Sounds About Right: Audiobooks to Help Us Understand the World
Listen to the Audio on BuzzSprout.com
I spoke to Bruce Schneier about his latest book A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back.
Some of the topics we discussed includes:
- How does hacking reinforce expositing power structures?
- What is the difference between hacking and cheating?
- How ‘Societal Hacks Are Often Normalized’ and how big financial companies often look for hacks.
- How do the rich and powerful use luxury real estate as a hack?
- When does being ‘Too Big To Fail’ also become a hack?
- How do companies such as Uber and Wework benefit from Venture Capitalism as a hack?…
Audio: Is This A Hack? Password Sharing On Netflix. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of “A Hacker’s Mind,” which answers the question. In this episode, we cover a common practice among Netflix users: password sharing, which gained popularity for allowing friends and family members to access a wider variety of content without having to pay for additional accounts.
Bruce Schneier on His New Book, a Hacker’s Mind
GrowthPolicy: I’d like to talk about your brilliant, and timely, new book, A Hacker’s Mind. In the book’s introduction, you write: “Security technologists look at the world differently than most people. When most people look at a system, they focus on how it works. When security technologists look at the same system, they focus on how it can be made to fail.” Tell our readers what first made you interested in the psychology of security technologists and hackers? In other words, what is the origin story of this book?
Bruce Schneier: These threads have been percolating in my head for a while now. I started writing about the psychology of security around 2008. That quote is something I have been saying for decades. The notions of socio-technical systems and how they can be attacked are just as old…
Hacking Procedure
A long time ago I joined Bruce Schneier on a panel on cyber security. I spoke on legal issues, developing a theme on self-defense which I later turned into a paper which won a little prize. Schneier was the real expert though, knowledgeable not just on technical details, the state of the art, but also the human factor and organizational causes of insecure computer systems. He’s since come out with a series of books on computer security, privacy, and related issues, and publishes a fairly regular “Crypto-Gram” newsletter.
Hacker’s Mind
Schneier’s latest book is “A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back.” This plays off the old notion of the hacker—the one I grew up with—as one who delights in understanding and manipulating systems to generate unexpected results- or at least results unintended by the system’s developer. A hacker is not a crook, but an exploder of limits. “Hacks follow the rules of a system but subvert their intent,” Schneier writes in his March 15, 2023 Crypto-Gram. Hacks aren’t necessarily illegal, although some are. Some are normalized and eventually accepted as a feature of the system. Banks that play fast and loose with reserve requirements might lead Congress to make the practice illegal (or the opposite: Congress might bail out the banks and allow bankers to keep their bonuses). Tax loopholes which plainly subvert the public intent of the tax system are often subsumed as an acceptable practice…
Audio: Is the Future Secure?
Listen to the Audio on TheFuturists.com
This week on The Futurists we get into the future of cybercrime and personal security in the smart world with renowned “security guru” Bruce Schneier. The author of over a dozen books (his latest bestseller being A Hacker’s Mind), Lecturer on Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, Congressional advisor and Media personality. Will AI and Quantum kill passwords? How secure will your DNA records be? The answers might surprise you.
Audio: Is This A Hack? Beating The Customer Service Phone Line. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of “A Hacker’s Mind, which answers the question. In this episode, we cover an “ingenious hack,” according to The Daily Mail, that “helps callers bypass the endless automated questions now used by most major firms’ helplines and get straight through to a human being.”
Audio: No Name Podcast with Bruce Schneier
Listen to the Audio on NoNamePodcast.org
Bruce Schneier spoke with Ruslan Kiyanchuk on the No Name Podcast.
Audio: Is This A Hack? Generating Income From Your Home. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of “A Hacker’s Mind,” which answers the question. In this episode, we cover the phenomenon known as “house hacking,” which is—according to an article from Rocket Mortgage—“a modern lifestyle choice that borrows heavily from old-school ways and has been reimagined with the help of modern home-sharing platforms.”
Bruce Schneier Wants to Recreate Democracy
Arguing that American democracy has been hacked, the computer security expert doesn’t want to just fiddle on the margins when it comes to re-envisioning what a new 21st-century American democracy should look like.
Like many people cooped up at home during COVID-19, Bruce Schneier had a pandemic project. In this case, it was a new book called A Hacker’s Mind, which encourages readers to apply the hacker mentality to our various social, political, economic, and legal systems. Schneier’s work on the book sparked deeper thinking about the suitability of our centuries-old democratic processes and institutions and whether they were still up to the task in our ever-increasing polarized and fractured political climate.
“Democracy has been hacked, mostly for the worse,” Schneier, a computer security specialist and privacy expert who is a faculty affiliate at the Ash Center, is quick to note. “Our democracy in the United States is really just not suited to the task anymore.” But if American democracy is no longer up to snuff in Schneier’s mind, the question quickly arises: What should a new American democracy look like?…
Audio: Thought Leadership: Bruce Schneier on ‘A Hacker’s Mind’
Listen to the Audio on VoiceAmerica.com
Welcome to Cyber Security America, the podcast where we delve deep into the world of cybersecurity and provide insights on past trends, current challenges, and areas for improvement. Our goal is to help you stay informed and prepared for the next cyber threat. In this episode, we have a very special guest, Bruce Schneier, an internationally renowned security technologist, known as a “security guru” by The Economist. With over a dozen books and hundreds of articles and academic papers under his belt, Bruce is a true legend in the information security field. He’s also the author of the latest book, “A Hacker’s Mind,” where he takes hacking out of the world of computing and uses it to analyze the systems that underpin our society. During our conversation, Bruce provides us with valuable insights on the current state of cybersecurity. He discusses the impact of coordinated takedowns by federal forces on ransomware actors, and how less payment transactions on the blockchain related to ransomware actors is a promising sign. He also highlights an emerging threat, Black Lotus, and shares his thoughts on how artificial intelligence thinking like a hacker could be catastrophic. This episode is packed with expert tips and lessons learned. So tune in now to Cyber Security America and join the conversation…
Audio: Is This a Hack? Theme Park Rides. Bruce Schneier, Author of “A Hacker’s Mind”
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
What is hacking? We asked Bruce Schneier, New York Times best-selling author of A Hacker’s Mind, which answers the question. In this episode, we cover a viral story from the New York Post, in which two parents “take matters into [their] own hands,” for their son, who is too short for several theme park rides, by crafting a special pair of shoes that made him taller.
Audio: A Hacker’s Mind. New Book. Bruce Schneier, Security Technologist and Cryptographer.
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com
Bruce Schneier is a public-interest technologist, working at the intersection of security, technology, and people. He is the New York Times best-selling author of the book, “Data and Goliath,” and author of the new book, “A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend Them Back.” In this episode, Schneier joins host Steve Morgan to discuss his new book, deep dive into a few chapters, and more.
Audio: Inside the “Hacker” Culture of the Rich and Powerful
Listen to the Audio on Marketplace.com
When you picture a hacker, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
For most, the word elicits images of a person in a dark hoodie in a darker room hunched over a computer furiously typing lines of code. However, when it comes to our wider culture of hacking, it’s often the most wealthy and powerful people who “hack” societal rules.
That interpretation of hacking is the focus of the new book, “A Hacker’s Mind: How the Rich and Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend Them Back” by technologist and “security guru” Bruce Schneier. He spoke with Marketplace’s David Brancaccio about how things like tax loopholes exemplify how some powerful people subvert the rules…
Audio: “Hacker’s Mind” Meets Lawyer’s Mind
Interviewing Bruce Schneier in episode 444 of the Cyberlaw Podcast
Listen to the Audio on Steptoe.com
This bonus episode offers an interview of Bruce Schneier, the prolific security guru, about his latest book, A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend Them Back. As usual with Bruce’s books, it is a good read, technically up to date and approachable. Much of the book, and of the interview, explores Bruce’s view that hacking—subverting the intent of a system of rules without actually breaking the rules—has much in common with lawyering. Finding ways to subvert a Microsoft program, Bruce argues, is not much different from exploiting loopholes in airline mileage programs or finding ways to count cards at a casino without letting the casino know what you’re doing. And those exploits are not really so different from what lawyers do when they hunt for unexpected tax loopholes to shelter income. The analogy only goes so far, as Bruce admits. It is often hard to actually define the “intent” that is being subverted, or to draw a line between subversion within the rules and just plain rule-breaking. And hacking, for all its underdog-beats-The-Man romance, is just a tool, available to everyone, including The Man. The world’s best computer hackers mostly work for governments or corporations these days, and the same is true for the world’s best legal hackers…
Video: An Interview with Bruce Schneier (Part of the World-leaders in Cryptography series)
Watch the Video on YouTube.com
Bruce Schneier spoke to a class in Edinburgh.
Audio: A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend Them Back
Listen to the Audio on DispatchesFromTheWarRoom.com
Host Ryan Ray interviewed Bruce Schneier.
Audio: How Hacking Benefits the Rich and Powerful With Bruce Schneier
Listen to the Audio on Transistor.fm
Hacking itself isn’t good or bad, but the intent behind it is. In his new book, internationally renowned security technologist Bruce Schneier takes hacking out of the world of computing and uses it to analyze the systems that underpin our society. He and Gene talk about this fascinating concept, how it’s central to our society, and how it can be checked. Bruce also offers his advice for those thinking about entering the cybersecurity industry. This is a not-to-be-missed episode from one of the most important voices in cybersecurity today…
A Hacker’s Mind—How the Elites Exploit the System
What does the computer world have to teach us about designing for resilience in other domains? Quite a lot, argues Bruce Schneier, in a new book that sees the security expert turn his gaze to the increasingly vulnerable financial, legal and political systems that underpin society.
“When most people look at a system, they focus on how it works,” writes Schneier, whose popular books and practical expertise have earned him a stellar reputation in the computer security field. “When security technologists look at the same system, they can’t help but focus on how it can be made to fail.”…
Hacking and the Social Contract
View or Download in PDF Format
The concept of “hacking” is not an invention of the digital age. Nor is it a purely technical process, although today it often requires some technical expertise. Humans have always tried to find loopholes in the systems of rules we find ourselves beholden to. When we reach a wall, we try to find a way around it.
Bruce Schneier’s A Hacker’s Mind is a collection of fairly short, often insightful commentaries about hacking. Schneier is one of the nation’s most well-known cybersecurity experts, and his prose is clear, jargon-free, and a pleasure to read. A reader might pick up this book for the numerous instructive cases and vignettes it offers, but conceptually, …
Review: Digital Tech Advances, AI Spur Hacking of Society
This Associated Press book review was reprinted by: ABC News, The Buffalo News, The Chicago Tribune, The Lexington Clipper-Herald, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tucson.com, The Winchester Star, and WRAL News.
“A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend Them Back” by Bruce Schneier (W.W. Norton & Company)
Hacking is universally understood as the exploitation of a software vulnerability by a malicious actor.
But hacking encompasses oh, so much more. By gaming systems, it achieves outcomes for which they were not designed. People do it to the economy, the tax code, the law. Discover a loophole, profit from an oversight…
Audio: A Hacker’s Mind: Bruce Schneier on How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules and How to Bend Them Back
Listen to the Audio on Podcasts.Apple.com
In this Keen On episode, Andrew talks to A Hacker’s Mind author Bruce Schneier about how the powerful have learnt to hack society rules and why we need to learn to outhack the hackers.
Audio: Artificial Intelligence
Listen to the Audio on EvergreenPodcasts.com
The rise of generative technologies like OpenAI’s ChatGPT offer a tantalizing – and perhaps ominous – look at information that can be easily curated and packaged into distributable false narratives. Even more powerful iterations of AI are just around the corner. Special thanks to Dr. Bruce Schneier, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society; Dr. David Yoffie, Professor of International Business Administration at Harvard Business School; Meredith Wilson, chief executive officer, Emergent Risk International…
Audio: The Lawfare Podcast: The Hacker’s Mind
Listen to the Audio on LawfareBlog.com
How does computer hacking work? When is it good, and when is it bad? And what does it have to teach us about law, politics, and inequality? These are some of the questions that Bruce Schneier, a well-known security expert and lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School, answers in his new book, A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules and How to Bend Them Back.
Jack Goldsmith sat down with Bruce to discuss what it means to have a hacker’s mind, why all systems—not just computer systems—are hackable, how and why the powerful and wealthy are typically the most successful hackers, and what AI will mean for hacking various systems…
How to Know if You’re a Hacker, and Other Life Hacks
In “A Hacker’s Mind,” Bruce Schneier goes beyond the black-hoodie clichés.
In the popular imagination, a hacker has one of two goals: to crusade as a modern-day folk hero against totalitarianism and corporate duplicity, or to steal your identity. In either case, he—for pop culture dictates that the hacker must be a man—looks much the same in his dark, windowless room, his pallid features bathed in the glow of computer monitors (at least three) and swaddled in a cloud of e-cig vapor. He’s a furtive underdog consigned to a realm of greasy pizza boxes, Guy Fawkes masks and, especially, black hoodies, which hackers are apparently issued at birth…
Pluralistic: Bruce Schneier’s A Hacker’s Mind (06 Feb 2023)
A Hacker’s Mind is security expert Bruce Schneier’s latest book, released today. For long-time readers of Schneier, the subject matter will be familiar, but this iteration of Schneier’s core security literacy curriculum has an important new gloss: power.
https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393866667
Schneier started out as a cryptographer, author of 1994’s Applied Cryptography, one of the standard texts on the subject. He created and co-created several important ciphers, and started two successful security startups that were sold onto larger firms. Many readers outside of cryptography circles became familiar with Schneier through his contribution to Neal Stephenson’s …
Hacking to Harm and Heal Democracy
In a new book, Bruce Schneier details how tricks, exploitations, and loopholes are benefiting those in power — and how a ‘hacking’ mindset can help us set things right.
From tax codes to the NFL rulebook, the world is made up of procedures, systems, and settings—all of which can be hacked.
In his newest book “A Hacker’s Mind: How the Rich and Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend Them Back,” cybersecurity expert and HKS faculty affiliate Bruce Schneier asks readers to expand their simple definition of hacking beyond just computer and IT systems but to consider how nearly everything around us can be hacked—for better or worse. With chapters covering everything from airline frequent flier miles to elections and redistricting, Schneier pushes us to examine how people use and abuse system vulnerabilities to get ahead—and how by adopting a hacking mindset, we can find and fix these weaknesses…
Audio: Understanding The Hacker’s Mind & Your Ever Shrinking Attention Span
Listen to the Audio on SomethingYouShouldKnow.com
When you think of hackers, you probably think of computer hackers doing bad things. However, there is a broader view of hacking that is really quite interesting. . Bruce Schneier is a renowned security technologist, who has written more than a dozen books. He teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School and is latest book is called A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back. Bruce joins me to explain how hacking goes on in all aspects of life from taxes to basketball and how it’s not always a bad thing. In fact hacking can be revolutionary…
A Hacker’s Mind (Book Review)
Starred Review
“Hacking is something that the rich and powerful do, something that reinforces existing power structures,” contends security technologist Schneier (Click Here to Kill Everybody) in this excellent survey of exploitation. Taking a broad understanding of hacking as an “activity allowed by the system that subverts the… system,” Schneier draws on his background analyzing weaknesses in cybersecurity to examine how those with power take advantage of financial, legal, political, and cognitive systems. He decries how venture capitalists “hack” market dynamics by subverting the pressures of supply and demand, noting that venture capital has kept Uber afloat despite the company having not yet turned a profit. Legal loopholes constitute another form of hacking, Schneier suggests, discussing how the inability of tribal courts to try non-Native individuals means that many sexual assaults of Native American women go unprosecuted because they were committed by non–Native American men. Schneier outlines strategies used by corporations to capitalize on neural processes and “hack… our attention circuits,” pointing out how Facebook’s algorithms boost content that outrages users because doing so increases engagement. Elegantly probing the mechanics of exploitation, Schneier makes a persuasive case that “we need society’s rules and laws to be as patchable as your computer.” With lessons that extend far beyond the tech world, this has much to offer. …
Video: Secure Democratic Election Technology
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Of all the tools human beings use to make decisions, there is one that is one that is highly effective in capturing the will of large populations of people: Democracy. Though the current democratic systems of government are flawed, corrupt, and easily swayed by financial incentives, they appear to be the most fertile ground from which we could grow the foundation for a Type One Planet. The question is, how do we make our democracy truly resilient, unquestionably reliable, and dynamically receptive to new and innovative ideas on how we can redesign our civilization for centuries to come. Bruce Schneier is a person who has dedicated his life to these questions. He is a public-interest technologist, a cryptographer, and a computer security specialist. He is a fellow and lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and a board member at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is dedicated to defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation…
A Hacker’s Mind (Book Review)
Author and public-interest security technologist Schneier (Data and Goliath, 2015) defines a “hack” as an activity allowed by a system “that subverts the rules or norms of the system […] at the expense of someone else affected by the system.” In accessing the security of a particular system, technologists such as Schneier look at how it might fail. In order to counter a hack, it becomes necessary to think like a hacker. Schneier lays out the ramifications of a variety of hacks, contrasting the hacking of the tax code to benefit the wealthy with hacks in realms such as sports that can innovate and change a game for the better. The key to dealing with hacks is being proactive and providing adequate patches to fix any vulnerabilities. Schneier’s fascinating work illustrates how susceptible many systems are to being hacked and how lives can be altered by these subversions. Schneier’s deep dive into this cross-section of technology and humanity makes for investigative gold…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.