News Tagged "Byte"
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Bruce Schneier’s book Secrets and Lies
Everyone who needs to understand or implement cryptographic algorithms reads Bruce Schneier’s Applied Cryptography. In that cookbook for cryptographers, it’s a matter of faith that deep mathematics, properly understood and cleverly arranged, can make three interrelated guarantees regarding digital communication:
- Confidentiality. Because messages are encrypted, nobody but the sender and the intended recipients can read them.
- Authenticity. Because messages are signed, nobody can impersonate anyone else.
- Integrity. Because messages are signed, nobody can tamper with them undetectably…
"Liars and Outliers" by Bruce Schneier
Society runs on trust and would collapse without it. The interconnectedness of the modern world creates new and dangerous risks to trust.
Bruce Schneier‘s recent book Liars and Outliers is a philosophical exploration of the role of trust in society, and is likely to appeal more to policy makers and academics than to information security practitioners. He describes how theories regarding trust (and perhaps trust itself) have evolved over time and sets this within the context of today’s global interconnected society.
Schneier has done a very careful literature review, citing theories and experiments across multiple disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and psychology. The computer scientist will find that the book does a very good job of discussing abstract concepts, while the computer professional will find that it lacks a concreteness needed for it to be useful in their daily work…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.