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Book Review: Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly about Security in an Uncertain World
Security is a tax on the honest. Schneier, in his book’s last chapter, fittingly titled Security Demystified, explains that in a world of honorable and law abiding citizens our lives would be a lot simpler. Unfortunately, this is not the case: during our life we are constantly facing dangers and risks and often have to evaluate complex tradeoffs that involve the safety of ourselves and the people we love.
For thousands of years the planning of security was conducted by specialists working on isolated domains like defense, banking, or civil aviation. Security decisions, good or (often) bad, were not publicized and the general public was kept in the dark regarding important security tradeoffs and weaknesses. Advances in information and networking technology have resulted in immensely increased requirements for secure applications and associated algorithms and protocols to conduct e-commerce, store private data, and communicate on the open internet. As a result, a new generation of security researchers started working in an open environment of scientific discourse and exchange, publishing their results in the open literature and communicating across previously isolated domain boundaries. These efforts have made information security an important element of computer science with a systematized body of knowledge and accepted practices. Bruce Schneier, a respected member of the information security community, in his book …
Audio: Beyond Fear: Behind the Mic
Host Doug Kaye says, “This is the one interview I hope everyone will hear.”
In his latest book, Beyond Fear, security guru Bruce Schneier goes beyond cryptography and network security to challenge our post-9/11 national security practices. Here are some teasers:
- “We’re seeing so much nonsense after 9/11, and so many people are saying things about security, about terrorism that just makes no sense.”
- “Homeland security measures are an enormous waste of money.”
- “If the goal of security is to protect against yesterday’s attacks, we’re really good at it.”…
Review of Beyond Fear
Bruce Schneier is perhaps the best example of why IT security professionals are “eating the lunch” of physical security managers in some corporations. He thinks creatively, he expresses himself logically, and he has cultivated the ear of people high on the corporate food chain. His latest book will be food for thought for security professionals.
Beyond Fear is organized into three sections: “Sensible Security,” “How Security Works,” and “The Game of Security.” The first section introduces three of Schneier’s core concepts: that all security involves trade-offs, that trade-offs are subjective, and that they depend on power and agenda…
Author Q & A: Bruce vs. Bruce
The following is a conversation between Bruce Schneier—a renowned security expert and founder and CTO of Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. whose newest book, Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World, explains how security really works—and Bruce Sterling, whose new techno-thriller, The Zenith Angle, is about computer security and Washington politics. Sterling also wrote The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, a nonfiction book about computer hackers and cyber-police. The two Bruces, long-time admirers of each other’s work, got together to discuss the nexus of security, technology, and the real world…
'An Enormous Waste of Money'
A security expert argues that America is spending its money ineffectively in the fight against terrorism
March 17 – The coordinated train bombings last Thursday in Spain marked the country’s deadliest terror attack ever, killing at least 200 and injuring at least 1,500. Indications—still unconfirmed—that Islamic fundamentalists with ties to Al Qaeda may have been behind the blasts have prompted emergency meetings among European leaders and raised fears of another attack on the United States. But are Washington’s precautions enough? And has its allocation of resources focused too much on air safety and not enough on other forms of public transportation?…
Beyond Fear a Security Primer for Troubled Minds
It’s a rare security book that can raise awareness without resorting to sensationalism, but Bruce Schneier’s recent title Beyond Fear is one of them. It covers the theory behind both good and bad security practices, though it’s not a manual. It does not explain how to make whatever you wish to defend more secure, but it will help you to think clearly about how to do that.
The book clearly defines the essential concepts and basic practices behind security in all areas of life. Indeed, computers and networks hardly come up. It’s the universal principles that Schneier is concerned with here, and he illustrates them with numerous everyday examples from the airport to the ATM to the local supermarket…
Beyond Fear into Reason
Bruce Schneier has been one of my heroes for many years, not least because of the clarity of his thought and the crispness of his writing. Readers of this column have seen references in the past to his free monthly Crypto-Gram newsletter, and I hope you have subscribed to that always-worthwhile publication.
In 2000, Schneier published a groundbreaking primer for non-nerds called Secrets & Lies in which he confronted many misunderstandings and outright myths about security in the digital realm. In 2003, he continued his educational efforts with …
Fears—Real and Illusory
In 1996, a man named Willis Robinson reprogrammed a computerized cash register at a Taco Bell in Maryland. The compromised machine would ring a $2.99 item internally as a one-cent sale, even as it showed the proper amount on its screen. Robinson skimmed $3,600 from his employer. He was caught only because he bragged about his exploits.
Bruce Schneier has much to say about technology in his new book Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World (Copernicus Books, $25). The book uses anecdotes and examples to show how security changes. In the Robinson case, technology created a new kind of threat, and that is what technology tends to do. Sure, you could play fast and loose with a store’s account from a manual or electric cash register, but you would have to do it repeatedly, and the theft would be visible. Robinson’s hack allowed him to pocket all the money that any cashier unwittingly rang up day or night…
Review of Beyond Fear
“That’s just it, Peter. We have to appear to know what’s happening, and what it means. Even if we don’t really know very much about either.”
Unnamed police informant to the reviewer. Source report graded B 2 (NATO system).
Bruce Schneier’s eminently well-informed and sensible text should be essential reading for any police official charged with making a “risk assessment,” or in any other way taking part in the risk management industry which as a result of 9/11 is likely to engulf—if you will forgive the pun—us all.
Mr Schneier is a real expert on security systems and their consequences, and therefore does not pretend to know everything. Nor is he prepared to accept responsibility for decisions that others need to make, on the basis of that combination of necessarily incomplete knowledge and arguable value-judgement that any real security decision involves. His book is the best kind of knowledge, for it enables us to decide things for ourselves, more effectively than if we had not read it beforehand. It contains what in one sense we knew, but did not dare say: and there is a wealth of detail to back it up…
How to Avoid Pickpockets, and Other Horror Stories
Excerpt
Think sensibly, and act with confidence
Security expert Bruce Schneier takes a much-ado-about-nothing view of terrorist fears. The odds of such an attack are close to zero, so better to worry about things that have at least some likelihood of occurring, he maintains.
“We as a society always fear the rare and spectacular more than the pedestrian,” says the cyber-security whiz and author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World (Copernicus Books, $25).
Though not geared specifically to travelers, his new book espouses the notion that security measures involve trade-offs—both monetary and personal. The book maps out a five-step plan to help individuals assess whether those trade-offs are worth it. …
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.