News in the Category "Articles"
Page 18 of 21
Schneier: In Touch With Security's Sensitive Side
This article was linked from Slashdot.
Cryptologist and now, psychologist: Renowned security expert Bruce Schneier once again is turning security on its head—literally. Schneier will share his latest research and insight at the RSA conference next week on the interplay between psychology and security. (See Schneier On Schneier.)
Schneier says the goal of his talk at RSA is not to discuss security technologies or tactics, but to explain how people think, and feel, about security. “A lot of the time at RSA, we are just puzzled why people don’t secure their computers, and why they behave irrationally. Psychology has a way of explaining this,” he says. “If we in the [security] industry expect to build products, we need to understand our customers.”…
Schneier on Schneier
He’s eaten guinea pig in Peru, whale in Japan, and tried insects in Australia. But security guru—and part-time restaurant critic—Bruce Schneier mostly steers clear of chain restaurants, which he finds oppressively uniform.
When he’s not sampling exotic cuisine, Schneier is best known as the developer of the Blowfish and Twofish encryption algorithms and as the bestselling author of Applied Cryptography, which has been called the bible for hackers. He’s written other books that examine security and society, and he is a renowned security speaker, blogger, and columnist, as well as a popular media talking head who offers unique views on everything from encryption to post-9/11 security overkill…
And You Thought Snow Globes Were Harmless Decorations
To paraphrase a classic line from Lily Tomlin, I worry that the person who thought up the rules for carrying liquids and gels on airplanes last year is busy thinking up something new this year.
The thought arises partly because of a scene just after Christmas at an airport security checkpoint, where a half-dozen festive snow globes—like the ones with Frosty the Snowman in a liquid-filled glass globe that simulates snowfall when you shake it—were lined up on a counter.
Wasn’t that nice! The Transportation Security Administration had decorated the checkpoint! But as it turned out, Frosty and his co-conspirators had actually been busted—confiscated from passengers’ carry-on bags pursuant to the following notification by the security administration:…
Theater of the Absurd at the T.S.A.
FOR theater on a grand scale, you can’t do better than the audience-participation dramas performed at airports, under the direction of the Transportation Security Administration.
As passengers, we tender our boarding passes and IDs when asked. We stand in lines. We empty pockets. We take off shoes. We do whatever is asked of us in these mass rites of purification. We play our assigned parts, comforted in the belief that only those whose motives are good and true will be permitted to pass through.
Of course, we never see the actual heart of the security system: the government’s computerized no-fly list, to which our names are compared when we check in for departure. The T.S.A. is much more talented, however, in the theater arts than in the design of secure systems. This becomes all too clear when we see that the agency’s security procedures are unable to withstand the playful testing of a bored computer-science student…
The Security Evangelist
Minnesota-based author Bruce Schneier challenges the conventional wisdom about what makes people, corporations and nations safer in the post-9/11 world.
Want to keep your kids safe? Teach them to talk to strangers, says Bruce Schneier, a Minneapolis author who happens to be one of the world’s leading security experts.
The Brooklyn transplant made his reputation as a cryptographer—his work has been mentioned in “The Da Vinci Code” and on the TV show “24”—and as co-founder of the network security company Counterpane, which was recently acquired by BT, the former British Telecom.
A geek’s geek who gets treated like a rock star at hacker conventions and mainstream security conferences alike, he continues as chief technology officer of BT Counterpane, a Silicon Valley-based company that manages the security of hundreds of corporations worldwide. But he’s spent much of the past few years trying to change the way most of us think about security…
Expert Urges Detective Work to Battle Terror
PROVIDENCE—The government is wasting billions of dollars on fruitless antiterrorist tactics when what’s needed is more old-fashioned police work, a visiting security expert said yesterday.
The expensive and invasive high-tech surveillance schemes and armed guards at airport won’t block terrorist attacks, said Bruce Schneier, because the terrorists can simply go elsewhere.
If we guard the Super Bowl, the terrorists can attack a playoff game instead. Or a shopping mall. Or trains, the way they did in Spain, where more than 190 people died and 1,900 were injured in March 2005…
Encryption Expert Teaches Security
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – It must say something about our times that Bruce Schneier, a geeky computer encryption expert turned all-purpose security guru, occasionally gets recognized in public. “My life is just plain surreal,” he says.
Schneier, 43, has made it so by popping up whenever technology and regular life intersect, weighing in on everything from the uselessness of post-Sept. 11 airport security measures to the perils of electronic voting machines and new passports with radio chips.
He does it by writing books, essays, a frequently updated Web log and an e-mail newsletter with 125,000 subscribers. It helps that he has never met a reporter whose phone calls he will not return. “I’m a media slut,” he admits…
Bruce Schneier: Channeling Common Sense
This mastermind's teachings and advice lead back to a singular goal: a common-sense approach to security
Bruce Schneier, CTO of Counterpane, is one of the world’s foremost experts on computer security. From a hard-core technical aspect (his first book, Applied Cryptography, is a long-time best seller for people wishing to understand cryptography in detail) as well as a philosophical viewpoint (his other books, such as Secrets and Lies or Beyond Fear, and his monthly Crypto-Gram newsletter), he continues to promote innovative commonsense security.
Bruce will come at an issue with what seems like an unpopular viewpoint, and turn your initial, gut reaction on its head. Say black, and Bruce is likely to say white. Say we need better security at large sports arenas and Bruce will argue the opposite. Say we need to create national ID cards to separate the terrorists from the law-abiding citizens and Bruce will say “baloney!” Want to spend billions making our skies safe from bomb-toting madmen? Forget about it!…
Recommended Reading: Getting Smart About Information Security
p. R2
Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technical officer of Counterpane Internet Security Inc., has spent much of his career educating people about digital security.
His book, “Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World,” serves as a non-technical introduction to the full, messy complexity of digital security.
Most recently, Mr. Schneier wrote, “Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.” This book about security technology—computer and otherwise, is geared toward the intelligent layman: anyone from a security engineer to a concerned citizen. “Thinking about security means thinking differently,” he says, and he believes people who read the book will never look at security the same way again…
The Cryptography Guru
Founder of Internet Security Firm Inspires Reaction: 'We Trust Bruce'
Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technical officer of Counterpane Internet Security, might be as close as the computer security industry gets to its own celebrity.
Although not as well known as Larry Ellison at Oracle or Bill Gates at Microsoft, Schneier is still the public face of his company, recognized by industry insiders as one of their gurus. Businesses hire Counterpane to guard their networks from hackers and viruses in the same way a nervous homeowner would pay a home-security provider like ADT to watch for fires or burglars.
But unlike most entrepreneurs, Schneier admits that he spends much of his time not focused on his creation…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.