Schneier on Security

Executive Summary

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World is Bruce Schneier’s manifesto on what should be done about the amount, and controls around data being collected on us.  If, like me, you have been focused on Information Security this book is a great exposure to the privacy issues our profession is facing. The book is more focused on policy than practical application, but worth the read for the background and ideas presented.

Data and Goliath is a call to action around two topics: first, the cultural acceptance of not owning our personal data or understanding how it is being used; and second, the difference between nation-state espionage and mass surveillance. Trying to reduce the themes of the book to just a couple of points is a gross oversimplification. This book belongs in the Canon due to the foundational and timeless issues it addresses for our industry. Finally, don’t let the 400-page length intimidate you, as the text of the book is only 238 pages with the rest being reference notes…

Hi everyone,

Political views aside, it is important to be aware of the fact that what we post online has a footprint. This is something I always tell my daughters and the younger generations. After reading “Data and Goliath” by Bruce Schneier, it is clear why corporate and government surveillance is on the rise—but more importantly the book is a good resource for learning how to protect your privacy online, if you so choose.

One story that this book reminded me of is from a few years back. The premise of the story being that targeted advertising from this teen girl’s online behavior figured out that she was pregnant before her dad did. Here’s an excerpt of the New York Times article:…

Data and Goliath—the very title invites you to read and have fun. But make no mistake—this is not a whimsical book. Rather,

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World, by Bruce Schneier, is sobering and frightening. When Schneier, whom Wired magazine called “one of the world’s foremost security experts,” writes, “[w]e are living in the golden age of surveillance,” he does not mean it approvingly.

Schneier points out that this golden age of surveillance did not happen by accident. Indeed, we Americans have chosen convenience and safety over privacy. For the convenience of cell phones, the Internet, the Cloud, and other technologies, we have given corporations the right to know virtually everything about us at every moment of every day. And, for safety from all things dangerous, such as child abductors, drug dealers, and certainly terrorists, we have relinquished our privacy, along with our civil liberties…

This just happened. Oops.

If you read this book I want you to focus on the pickle. It’s a book about big data, surveillance and freedom vs convenience, but I want you thinking like this book is one of those MASSIVE corned beef sandwiches you get in New York. You know the ones where the slices of bread look like postage stamps under a virtual mountain of charred, savory flesh. The sandwich is the key but the pickle should not ever be forgotten because often times is the last thing you taste. Bruce Schneier’s book on big data is something that EVERY American over the age of, well, reading age, should read. Will they? No. Why? Because for some reason many Americans don’t seem to care about much of this. At least until something happens to them, at which time they turn around and try to explain what happened to an audience who…just…doesn’t…care. I did my own little …