News in the Category "Liars and Outliers"
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Book Recommendation: Liars & Outliers
A new book from Bruce Schneier—the man who coined the term security theater that has since made its way into the mainstream lexicon.
In short—Liars & Outliers is good—really good. Schneier comes from a computer security background, but he has gone much bigger picture with this book. Fundamentally it’s a book about trust—why we trust each other, what mechanisms we have in society to ensure that we do trust each other, and how these fail sometimes.
It’s a book that introduces a new framework—paradigm even—for thinking about why we trust each other and what security measures we want or need in our society…
Liars & Outliers Book Review
In 2010 I attended a conference on Security and Human Behavior at the University of Cambridge (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/shb10/), where academics explored ways of helping people operate more safely in an increasingly uncertain world, and spoke about the resilience of crowd behavior in mass emergencies. After that I offered to proof read a draft of a book by one of the organizers, and he very kindly sent me a copy, so I thought it only fair to give it a quick plug;
Bruce Schneier’s new book Liars and Outliers is a very readable book that looks at how society depends upon trust to operate, and that things would quickly grind to a halt if people did not place trust in each other for a multitude of vital social functions. It is grounded in sound theoretical perspectives, drawing upon well established psychological explanations for human behavior, such as social dilemmas, where immediate individual interest may not always be for the greater collective good. It’s helpfully peppered with tables that illustrate the issues involved in such social dilemmas, and supported by a variety of evidence from economic, technological, and psychological approaches- well worth a read…
Liars & Outliers
Bruce has touched upon the 16 interdisciplinary and inter-related subject areas (answers can be found in the 16×16 matrix below) that make up the core of his new book. His new book is all about TRUST and SECURITY. Liars & Outliers is an excellent read with just over 16 chapters and a clear focus on how humans developed the trust they needed to survive over the centuries.
The book poses several ideas that may seem new to us security professionals such as Dunbar’s numbers, and the Red Queen effect, and the Hawk-Dove game. Wonderfully explained in Liars and Outliers is the model of trust based on societal, moral, reputational and institutional pressures that security systems need to address to be effective…
Are Your Customers Friends or Criminals?
One of the best books I’ve read this year is by a security technologist, Bruce Schneier. In Liars and Outliers, he sets out to investigate how trust works in society and in business, how it is betrayed and the degree to which technology changes all of that, for the better or the worse.
Schneier absolutely understands how profoundly trust oils the wheels of business and of daily life. “The more customers trust merchants, the more business gets done. The more drivers trust each other, the smoother the traffic.” Trust is what allows us to deal with strangers, to expand our horizons and our companies. It is like the air that we breathe: Invisible but essential. That is invisible may mean that we don’t consider how powerfully it could work for companies if it were considered an asset, capable of generating growth and loyalty…
Bruce Schneier, Trust, Teaching, and My Daughter’s School
I used to teach. I taught at an extraordinary, Hogwarts-esque New England boarding school, quite unlike the West Virginia public schools I attended. I’m privileged to have had the opportunity; I learned a tremendous amount from it.
My daughter is in preschool now at a Montessori school. This could scarcely be more different, in culture or structure, from the school where I taught, and I’ve been struggling for years to find ways to articulate the differences. Part of this is that I’ve felt, increasingly, that the Montessori approach to culture is the …
The Tribal Mind: Moral Reasoning and Public Discourse
Excerpt
[In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan] Haidt writes:
Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate self-interest and make cooperative societies possible.
It is interesting to compare this perspective with what one finds in Liars and Outliers, a recent book by Bruce Schneier on the social problem of trust and security. Schneier, a security consultant, views our lives from the perspective of game theory. Every day, we must decide whether to cooperate or to defect. Do I try to arrive at work on time, or do I show up late? Do I drive safely or aggressively? Do I support the goals of my department, or do I work for myself? Does my department support the goals of the larger organization, or does it pursue its own interests? Does the larger organization work to support the goals of the society to which it belongs, or does it pursue its own goals?…
Det komplexa samhället och dess fiender
Bruce Schneier
Liars & Outliers: Enabling the Trust That Society Needs to Thrive
Wiley 2012
Det är inte alltid lätt att vara småhandlare. ”När slaktaren kommer till mig för att köpa ett djur, vet han att jag vill lura honom”, berättar en boskapshandlare för Oxfordprofessorn Diego Gambetta. ”Men, jag vet också att han kommer att vilja lura mig. För att vi ska kunna komma överens behövs ’Peppe’ [en tredje part] som kan få oss att komma överens. I utbyte får han en del av köpesumman.”
Det behövs inget särskilt stort mått av välvilja från bryggarens, bagarens eller slaktarens sida för att vi ska kunna äta oss mätta. Tack vare marknadsmekanismerna behöver vi inte vädja till något mer än deras vinstintresse. Men, som boskapshandlaren illustrerar, både kräver och bygger marknaden på tillit. Och där det inte finns, måste det skapas – till ett högre eller lägre pris…
Review: Of Parasites, Trust and Morality
Without trust, society splits into warring tribes and parasites prosper. The financial crisis of 2008 is a powerful example of what can happen when individuals or small groups set their own gain above the common good. Meanwhile, the U.S. debt debate shows how political polarization can lead to potentially crippling paralysis.
People are moral creatures, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes in “The Righteous Mind.” Citing brain research, evolutionary psychology and the social sciences, Haidt says successful societies use a shared sense of morality to bind citizens to the common good. In a broad sense, religion has been a highly effective tool for building social cohesion and trust. Security expert Bruce Schneier, who charts similar ground in his book “Liars & Outliers,” largely agrees…
Trust Me!
Now why would you do that? I mean really, why would you trust me?
Some of you reading this know me, most of you do not. But even for those who do, I ask the question again, why would you trust me? You read my musings, you see me at events, you know what I do here at CSO, but that’s about it. Hey, I could just be making all this stuff up!
Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t trust me (I don’t make it up). I am, as it happens, a very trustworthy person, and if you do trust me, then that probably means that you are a very trusting person.
The point I’m making is that we live in a society where trust is very often given without warrant. If you compare that attitude with the one that inspires the hurdles we necessarily put in place to establish electronic or business trust, I think you would agree that we set up very different standards for trusting someone depending on what we’re trusting them with. That’s a risk…
Society’s Dependence on Trust and Security
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 kill him…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.