News in the Category "Book Reviews"
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Liars & Outliers
I’ve been a Bruce Schneier fan for years. I read his blog often enough that I don’t feel the need to read his books. But then he offered a discount on a signed edition of his latest book– with the one stipulation that I write a review of it. So here’s the review.
A lot of brilliant thinkers tend to get stuck in their own perspective. There are plenty of mathematical geniuses who can’t contemplate the implications of their ideas. Plenty of programmers who can’t understand why users don’t recognize the brilliance of their user interfaces. Bruce Schneier isn’t one of them. His rose to fame with …
Obligatorisk Læsning
Jeg har lige lagt Bruce Schneiers “Liars and Outliers” fra mig og det bliver ikke nemt at gøre den retfærdighed i en boganmeldelse.
De fleste af jer har aldrig hørt om Bruce Schneier før, men blandt IT folk er han et idol, hvis bøger om kryptografi er obligatoriske klassikere i branchen.
Denne gang har han skrevet en bog om sikkerhed der ikke handler om computere og faktisk kun halvvejs handler om sikkerhed.
Bogen er i bund og grund en analyse af hvordan mennesker omgås hinanden, hverken mere eller mindre, men det er ikke nogen særlig hjælpsom opsummering, for det dækker alt fra affaldshåndtering over skattelovgivning til computersikkerhed…
De la Confianza
Bruce Schneier, Liars & Outliers: Enabling the Trust That Society Needs to Thrive. (Mentirosos y excéntricos. Haciendo posible la confianza que la sociedad necesita para prosperar.) John Wiley & Sons Inc., Indianapolis, USA, 2012. 366 páginas.
Desde que en un giro más o menos calculado a mi retorcida trayectoria profesional (sobre la que prefiero no entrar en este blog) presté más atención a la hirsuta disciplina de la seguridad informática, sigo con interés las opiniones de Bruce Schneier, una eminencia en el área. Me gusta sobre todo su franqueza a la hora de distinguir entre las políticas y medidas que realmente aumentan la seguridad con las que, frecuentemente mucho más costosas, tan sólo son una exhibición de cara a la galería. Un ejemplo notorio, las medidas que las histéricas democracias occidentales infligen a su población con la excusa del terrorismo: desproporcionadas, caras, molestas y muy poco efectivas, consistiendo más bien en un …
Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive
Full disclosure: I’m a pretty big Bruce Schneier fan and I did get this book at a discount for promising to review it. This is me fulfilling my end of the promise.
Schneier is a security guy. Not this kind, more about security in technology. He’ll be the first to point out your security flaws, tell you how terrible your password is, and publicize a companies mishandling of said password. This book is different. It’s a lot less about technology and security and more about the psychology of trust in humans. (Don’t worry, there’s still some TSA bashing on pg. 197)…
To Endow Trust
Liars and Outliers Enabling the Trust That Society Needs to Thrive by Bruce Schneier Wiley, Indianapolis, IN, 2012. 382 pp. $24.95, C$27.95. ISBN 9781118143308.
When the extent of the financial crisis came to light in 2008, former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan had to admit to Congress that he had “made a mistake in presuming that the self interest of organizations was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and the equity in the firms”—a mistake that turned out to be very costly, and not only to the American economy. It might be unfair to blame Greenspan for his misperception of the self-interest of organizations. Until very recently, there was no way for someone to objectively and impartially measure the nature of human social behavior. From Aristotle to George W. Bush, decisions have been made based on personal beliefs about how selfishly or cooperatively other people will act…
Liars & Outliers: A Book Review
Anthropology was one of my college majors. I preferred physical to cultural anthropology. The history of primates, as told by fragments of bones or teeth, was more interesting to me than was the glue that held societies together. I preferred learning about Zinjanthropus boisei to reading about the customs of the Yanamami people of the Amazon rainforest or the !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari Desert.
I was unenthusiastic about cultural anthropology until I read the monograph, Deciphering a Meal, by the anthropologist Mary Douglas. The article dissected meal rituals and their purposes. She looked at how being invited over for drinks meant something different than sharing leftovers at the kitchen table. There is a lengthy discussion about kosher rituals. The article had a profound effect on my thinking, particularly about human behavior…
Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive
Some years ago, I participated in a meeting of academic members and associates of the then recently-founded Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London (UCL). The aim was to define what exactly was meant by ‘crime science’, a new term challenging conventional criminology. In attendance was one of the originators of the term and the Institute, Professor Ron Clarke of Rutgers.
The consensus definition quickly centered on an interest in the near or proximal causes of criminal events such as opportunities and provocations, rather than traditional concerns with criminality and even more remote societal causes; a readiness to draw on evidence, theory and scientific method; an interest in multidisciplinary applications of other sciences ranging from physics to microbiology; and a practical focus on reducing risks of crime. Then I posed a seemingly straightforward question: surely, to be fully scientific, we need a scientific definition of crime itself? Otherwise, at the heart of crime science is a mushy core of”we all know what crime means…don’t we?”…
You Can’t Trust Airport Security
But don't worry: It has always been easy to cheat, steal or kill, and few people do
Excerpt
When the plumber knocks at your door, why do you let him in? He’s probably bigger and stronger than you. And he has a wrench. He could easily kill you and steal your money and your stuff, which would certainly be a better deal for him than receiving a moderate payment and having to fix your toilet.
But you trust that he won’t; and trust, that mysterious and invaluable substance, is the subject of Bruce Schneier’s ambitious “Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust That Society Needs to Survive,” which starts with the homely parable of the plumber and builds into a treatise on every aspect of trust, from marital fidelity to transnational terrorism…
Bruce Schneier’s Book: The Internet Has Created ‘the Largest Trust Gap’ in History
'Liars and Outliers' takes swings at NSA, U.S. government, Facebook, Microsoft and others
Technology, often made possible through networks, grants new powers to communicate and learn, to travel, to make decisions of critical importance, to make things, provide services, sell them and buy them. In a modern society, it’s all done against a backdrop of trust not only that the technology is reliable and secure, but that the people involved in every process, whether we meet them face-to-face or not, are trustworthy. That trust is largely created by societal pressures—ranging from codes of moral behavior and laws, plus worries about reputation, for example…
Book Reviews: Liars and Outliers
I want to tell you that this book is amazing and I loved every moment of it. It’s smart, I agree with most of what he says, and I very much appreciate Bruce Schneier’s candidness when he’s making statements more on gut instinct and doesn’t yet have full scientific work to back it up, or the work he has isn’t actually very convincing. He could have written a compelling book without those admissions (and many authors of pop non-fiction do exactly that) but I found his insights much more interesting when he acknowledges where they’re more speculation than anything else. The anecdotes, stories and analogies are interesting and work with the ideas contained therein, and the applications to social structures and laws and whatnot were clear and convincing…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.