News in the Category "Text"
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Schneier and Zittrain on Digital Security and the Power of Metaphors
Excerpt
Bruce Schneier is one of the world’s leading cryptographers and theorists of security. Jonathan Zittrain is a celebrated law professor, theorist of digital technology and wonderfully performative lecturer. The two share a stage at Harvard Law School’s Langdell Hall. JZ introduces Bruce as the inventor of the phrase ‘security theatre’, author of a leading textbook on cryptography and subject of a wonderful internet meme.
The last time the two met on stage, they were arguing different sides of an issue—threats of cyberwar are grossly exaggerated—in an Oxford-style debate. Schneier was baffled that, after the debate, his side lost. He found it hard to believe that more people thought that cyberwar was a real threat than an exaggeration, and realized that there is a definitional problem that makes discussing cyberwar challenging…
Bruce Schneier: "We Live in a Feudal Security World"
We live today in a “feudal security world”, says internationally renowned security technologist Bruce Schneier.”
We pledge our allegiance to the service providers—the likes of Google, Facebook – and expect them to provide us with security in return—akin to serfs and peasants paying tribute to their lords in the form of personal data, says Schneier, the author of Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust Society Needs to Survive, and chief security technology officer at BT.
“What I am seeing is a shift in power on the internet, that we generally have less control over our IT infrastructure, our products, our user devices, our services. “We basically have to trust our vendors,” he says. “We just don’t have the ability to control security or configuration the way we did when we owned and controlled the platforms…
The Compulsion to Share
Type ‘security expert’ into Google and the third result is Schneier on Security, a blog written by Bruce Schneier, the author of several books and chief security technology officer at BT.
The blog is also the top Google result for ‘security blogger’ and No. 7 for ‘computer security expert,’ despite the fact that Schneier doesn’t describe himself as an expert. (Qualifier: Google customizes results to the user, so your mileage may vary.)
It gets more interesting when you look at references to Bruce Schneier in media outlets: 175 mentions in The New York Times, 146 in The Wall Street Journal and almost 400 each in Computerworld and InformationWeek. All this in a market that is one of the most information-saturated in the technology sphere…
Security Expert: Trusting Service Providers With Security Is Dangerous
In the days of feudalism, serfs and minor lords pledged allegiance to the king and received protection in return. As long as the king held up his end of the bargain, the system worked. If he didn’t, the system would crumble, as it eventually did in Europe around the 15th century.
Bruce Schneier, CTO of BT Managed Security Solutions, sees the feudalism dynamic happening today on the Web, where users of social networking and other online services must blindly trust that the companies providing those services are paying enough attention to security. And given the power these firms wield, that is by no means a safe assumption…
Book Review: Liars and Outliers
I’ve been a fan of Bruce Schneier ever since I read his post about security theater in the post 9/11 world. As soon as I discovered that he wrote a book, Liars and Outliers, I added it to my to-read list and just finished reading it over the weekend. It’s one of those books that is obvious as you read it but spawns a ton of thoughts. He develops a framework that he uses to analyze security and trust in individuals, organizations, and differently-sized societies.
Trust is the foundation that’s allowing the world to become faster paced and interconnected. We’re interacting with people all across the globe, our organizations and businesses are larger than ever, and we’re more dependent on technology than ever. Modern life depends on these complex trust systems and Schneier does a great job explaining the various interactions and the impact technology is having. As others have said, the 21st century will be about data and the rise of social networks, wearable computers, and the quantified self movement are an indicator of the type of data that will be collected. We need to make sure proper systems are in place to prevent abuse and Liars and Outliers provides a great framework to think about these issues and prepare us for the data century…
No Longer a Liar (Or an Outlier)
I criticized Bruce Schneier for the poor handling of his “trust experiment” with regard to his latest book, Liars & Outliers. I have now read it, thus perhaps putting me back into his good graces.
I’m a fan of Bruce Schneier. I’ve followed his blog for years, and I enjoy his moderate and practical approach to various security issues. So when he offered signed copies of his latest book at a discounted price in exchange for a review, I jumped at the opportunity.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. Perhaps because I’m already familiar, and agree, with many of his ideas, I didn’t find too many surprising ideas here. Nonetheless, Schneier does a great job of laying out a broad, fairly consistent framework for looking at how people cooperate and, if the title is meant to indicate a theme, “defect” from various forms of pressure meant to induce that cooperation…
Liars and Outliers: A Review
Recently, Bruce Schneier offered a discounted copy of his latest book “Liars and Outliers” in exchange for a review. Because I am a fan of his, I jumped at the opportunity. Bruce is known for is work in the field of cryptography, but cryptography systems have improved to the point that they often are no longer the weak link in the system. People are. Because of this, he has been studying psychology and human behavior. Liars and Outliers is the latest of his books in this area.
Right off the bat, this book opens with a revelation.
Just today, a stranger came to my door claiming he was here to unclog a bathroom drain. I let him into my house without verifying his identity, and not only did he repair the drain, he also took off his shoes so he wouldn’t track mud on my floors. When he was done, I gave him a piece of paper that asked my bank to give him some money. He accepted it without a second glance. At no point did he attempt to take my possessions, and at no point did I attempt the same of him. In fact, neither of us worried that the other would. My wife was also home, but it never occurred to me that he was a sexual rival and I should therefore kill him…
Here's How Hackers Took Over the Burger King Twitter Account
Burger King and Jeep both saw their Twitter accounts get hacked this week.
How and why does this happen?
Bruce Schneier is a revered computer security expert, prominent for his thoughts on the intersection of technology, security, and trust.
He was kind enough to fill us in on the details surrounding how hacks like these are possible.
How a Twitter account gets hacked
A person attempting to break into an account isn’t hunched over a keyboard typing guessed password after guessed password until something works. He’ll use a password cracker.
A password cracker is a piece of software that employs a technique to guess passwords much more quickly than a human ever could. The two most common approaches are the “brute force method” and the “dictionary method.” While the dictionary method simply tries every word in a dictionary until it works, the brute force method tries every possible combination of characters (including numbers and punctuation) until something works…
Interview: Critical Infrastructure Security Perspectives From Bruce Schneier
A couple weeks ago we asked Bruce Schneier if he would be kind enough to respond to a few questions about security related to critical infrastructures such as the power grid. We are delighted and honored that Mr. Schneier would take the time from his busy schedule to answer our request! Below is a perspective that we are certain you will find interesting and useful in your quests to build and support practical security solutions at your organization.
Q1: There seems to be a great deal of fear and hyperbole about potentially catastrophic cyberattacks against critical infrastructure such as the power grid. How do we clear away the hype and determine what threats realistically exist and what should the industry consider doing about them?…
Bruce Schneier: "It Is Not Prevention or Detection, It Is Response"
Coverage of this interview also appeared in International Business Times.
As well as being a renowned cryptographer, influential security expert and outspoken conference favourite, Bruce Schneier has had his share of coverage in recent months as the Prism story unfolded. He chose to leave his position as BT’s security futurologist at the end of last month and has now turned his hand to incident response.
Schneier recently left BT, who acquired his company Counterpane in 2006, to join Co3 Systems as chief technology officer this month. I began by asking him what attracted him to a relatively unknown company…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.