Entries Tagged "Schneier news"

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I'm Leaving IBM

Today is my last day at IBM.

If you’ve been following along, IBM bought my startup Resilient Systems in Spring 2016. Since then, I have been with IBM, holding the nicely ambiguous title of “Special Advisor.” As of the end of the month, I will be back on my own.

I will continue to write and speak, and do the occasional consulting job. I will continue to teach at the Harvard Kennedy School. I will continue to serve on boards for organizations I believe in: EFF, Access Now, Tor, EPIC, Verified Voting. And I will increasingly be an advocate for public-interest technology.

Posted on June 28, 2019 at 2:04 PM • View Comments

Security and Human Behavior (SHB) 2019

Today is the second day of the twelfth Workshop on Security and Human Behavior, which I am hosting at Harvard University.

SHB is a small, annual, invitational workshop of people studying various aspects of the human side of security, organized each year by Alessandro Acquisti, Ross Anderson, and myself. The 50 or so people in the room include psychologists, economists, computer security researchers, sociologists, political scientists, criminologists, neuroscientists, designers, lawyers, philosophers, anthropologists, business school professors, and a smattering of others. It’s not just an interdisciplinary event; most of the people here are individually interdisciplinary.

The goal is to maximize discussion and interaction. We do that by putting everyone on panels, and limiting talks to 7-10 minutes. The rest of the time is left to open discussion. Four hour-and-a-half panels per day over two days equals eight panels; six people per panel means that 48 people get to speak. We also have lunches, dinners, and receptions—all designed so people from different disciplines talk to each other.

I invariably find this to be the most intellectually stimulating two days of my professional year. It influences my thinking in many different, and sometimes surprising, ways.

This year’s program is here. This page lists the participants and includes links to some of their work. As he does every year, Ross Anderson is liveblogging the talks—remotely, because he was denied a visa earlier this year.

Here are my posts on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh SHB workshops. Follow those links to find summaries, papers, and occasionally audio recordings of the various workshops. Ross also maintains a good webpage of psychology and security resources.

Posted on June 6, 2019 at 2:16 PM • View Comments

I Was Cited in a Court Decision

An article I co-wrote—my first law journal article—was cited by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court—the state supreme court—in a case on compelled decryption.

Here’s the first, in footnote 1:

We understand the word “password” to be synonymous with other terms that cell phone users may be familiar with, such as Personal Identification Number or “passcode.” Each term refers to the personalized combination of letters or digits that, when manually entered by the user, “unlocks” a cell phone. For simplicity, we use “password” throughout. See generally, Kerr & Schneier, Encryption Workarounds, 106 Geo. L.J. 989, 990, 994, 998 (2018).

And here’s the second, in footnote 5:

We recognize that ordinary cell phone users are likely unfamiliar with the complexities of encryption technology. For instance, although entering a password “unlocks” a cell phone, the password itself is not the “encryption key” that decrypts the cell phone’s contents. See Kerr & Schneier, supra at 995. Rather, “entering the [password] decrypts the [encryption] key, enabling the key to be processed and unlocking the phone. This two-stage process is invisible to the casual user.” Id. Because the technical details of encryption technology do not play a role in our analysis, they are not worth belaboring. Accordingly, we treat the entry of a password as effectively decrypting the contents of a cell phone. For a more detailed discussion of encryption technology, see generally Kerr & Schneier, supra.

Posted on March 15, 2019 at 2:38 PM • View Comments

Videos and Links from the Public-Interest Technology Track at the RSA Conference

Yesterday at the RSA Conference, I gave a keynote talk about the role of public-interest technologists in cybersecurity. (Video here).

I also hosted a one-day mini-track on the topic. We had six panels, and they were all great. If you missed it live, we have videos:

  • How Public Interest Technologists are Changing the World: Matt Mitchell, Tactical Tech; Bruce Schneier, Fellow and Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School; and J. Bob Alotta, Astraea Foundation (Moderator). (Video here.)
  • Public Interest Tech in Silicon Valley: Mitchell Baker, Chairwoman, Mozilla Corporation; Cindy Cohn, EFF; and Lucy Vasserman, Software Engineer, Google. (Video here.)
  • Working in Civil Society: Sarah Aoun, Digital Security Technologist; Peter Eckersley, Partnership on AI; Harlo Holmes, Director of Newsroom Digital Security, Freedom of the Press Foundation; and John Scott-Railton, Senior Researcher, Citizen Lab. (Video here.)
  • Government Needs You: Travis Moore, TechCongress; Hashim Mteuzi, Senior Manager, Network Talent Initiative, Code for America; Gigi Sohn, Distinguished Fellow, Georgetown Law Institute for Technology, Law and Policy; and Ashkan Soltani, Independent Consultant. (Video here.)
  • Changing Academia: Latanya Sweeney, Harvard; Dierdre Mulligan, UC Berkeley; and Danny Weitzner, MIT CSAIL. (Video here.)
  • The Future of Public Interest Tech: Bruce Schneier, Fellow and Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School; Ben Wizner, ACLU; and Jenny Toomey, Director, Internet Freedom, Ford Foundation (Moderator). (Video here.)

I also conducted eight short video interviews with different people involved in public-interest technology: independent security technologist Sarah Aoun, TechCongress’s Travis Moore, Ford Foundation’s Jenny Toomey, CitizenLab’s John-Scott Railton, Dierdre Mulligan from UC Berkeley, ACLU’s Jon Callas, Matt Mitchell of TacticalTech, and Kelley Misata from Sightline Security.

Here is my blog post about the event. Here’s Ford Foundation’s blog post on why they helped me organize the event.

We got some good press coverage about the event. (Hey MeriTalk: you spelled my name wrong.)

Related: Here’s my longer essay on the need for public-interest technologists in Internet security, and my public-interest technology resources page.

And just so we have all the URLs in one place, here is a page from the RSA Conference website with links to all of the videos.

If you liked this mini-track, please rate it highly on your RSA Conference evaluation form. I’d like to do it again next year.

Posted on March 8, 2019 at 2:24 PM • View Comments

Click Here to Kill Everybody Available as an Audiobook

Click Here to Kill Everybody is finally available on Audible.com. I have ten download codes. Not having anything better to do with them, here they are:

  1. HADQSSFC98WCQ
  2. LDLMC6AJLBDJY
  3. YWSY8CXYMQNJ6
  4. JWM7SGNUXX7DB
  5. UPKAJ6MHB2LEF
  6. M85YN36UR926H
  7. 9ULE4NFAH2SLF
  8. GU7A79GSDCXAT
  9. 9K8Q4RX6DKL84
  10. M92GB246XY7JN

Congratulations to the first ten people to try to use them.

EDITED TO ADD (12/30): All the codes are long gone.

Posted on December 28, 2018 at 12:11 PM • View Comments

Click Here to Kill Everybody News

My latest book is doing well. And I’ve been giving lots of talks and interviews about it. (I can recommend three interviews: the Cyberlaw podcast with Stewart Baker, the Lawfare podcast with Ben Wittes, and Le Show with Harry Shearer.) My book talk at Google is also available.

The Audible version was delayed for reasons that were never adequately explained to me, but it’s finally out.

I still have signed copies available. Be aware that this is both slower and more expensive than online bookstores.

Posted on November 30, 2018 at 2:29 PM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.