Schneier on Security

A new book by security expert Bruce Schneier is raising serious questions about the state of privacy in the big data age, and whether giving corporations and government access to the most intimate details of our lives in exchange for convenience and security is a tradeoff we should be making.

Since 9/11, Schneier has been an outspoken critic of the government’s sometimes ham-handed approach to security. Take the airport security checkpoints, for example. Is the economic loss from asking everybody to wait in line and take off their belts and shoes (more than $10 billion per year in 2004 dollars) or the added deaths from people deciding to drive instead of fly (500 per year) worth the marginal increase in security we get from the checkpoints? In Schneier’s analysis, they’re not…