Schneier on Security

A selection of books, essays, and academic papers chosen by Bruce Schneier for The Syllabus.

I. Citizen Hacker

This essay expands on the notion that people should “hack” democracy as a vehicle for change. Peering beyond the buzzwords, a healthier approach to political transformation through technological means “would involve refraining from fetishizing the tools while taking their intrinsically political nature into account along with the question of their design.”

II. Coding Democracy

This book offers an exploration of hackers as both societal disrupters and innovators. Admirably, Webb not only lays out a theoretical case for how hackers can invent “new forms of distributed, decentralized democracy” but she provides a close examination of prominent and productive case studies…