Schneier on Security

Excerpt

Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust That Society Needs to Thrive by Bruce Schneier (Wiley). “I picked up this book because it was about information security. In reading it, I discovered a much broader and more philosophical work. The core premise is that trust and cooperation are intrinsic to all human interactions, cultures, and societies. The author syn- thesizes research from a wide swath of disciplines, including computer security, econom- ics, evolutionary biology, law, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. While it is an excellent book about security law and policy, I learned just as much about organizational structure and governance, rational decision-making, and the nature of innovation.”…

Trust is all around us. I trust drivers to wait at the red light while I cross the street, my doctor to base his diagnosis on the best available evidence, and my neighbor not to crack me over the head and swipe my wallet and phone as we ride the elevator together. In Liars and Outliers Bruce Schneier attempts to make rigorous the intuition that trust is the foundation of the remarkable degree of cooperation that characterizes successful societies. He makes his case in the context of social contract theory, game theory, behavioral economics, and moral, social, and evolutionary psychology. There is a lot in …

I’ve just finished reading Liars and Outliers by Bruce Schneier. I received a signed copy thanks to Schneier’s discounted signed book offer of $11 plus a review. So here’s a review:

In this book, Schneier takes on all of security: What is it, and why does it work? The answer flows through diverse areas of study, from evolutionary psychology to game theory. He begins (appropriately enough) with history; a discussion of predators and prey. From microbiology, we move rapidly forward through time to modern society.

After taking a look at history, Schneier moves into a discussion of the four societal pressures: moral, reputational, institutional, and security. Each kind of pressure is built off of the previous ones, with security being the most advanced…

We learn to trust strangers from a very young age. Not just uncles, cousins and neighbors, but also teachers, policemen, doctors and even newsreaders on TV. Compared to our ancestors and other animal species, humans have raised trust to unknown heights. Bruce Schneier, in his new book Liars & Outliers, takes us on a tour of how that trust came to be, how it manages to work in the majority of cases and why it doesn’t work in the rest.

Schneier uses Francis Fukuyama’s definition of trust, which holds that other members of society act in a predictable, honest and co-operative way, based on shared norms. This is enormously helpful for society as a whole, because there are costs and risks involved in dealing with others and establishing their trustworthiness. If society can organize itself so that we can safely trust other members, that saves us a lot of time and money…

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…

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…