Talks: 2023 Archives
Audio: A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back
Listen to the Audio on SimpleCast.com
In his newest book “A Hacker’s Mind: How the Rich and Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend Them Back,” cybersecurity expert and HKS faculty affiliate Bruce Schneier asks readers to expand their simple definition of hacking beyond just computer and IT systems but to consider how nearly everything around us can be hacked—for better or worse. With chapters covering everything from airline frequent flier miles to elections and redistricting, Schneier pushes us to examine how people use and abuse system vulnerabilities to get ahead—and how by adopting a hacking mindset, we can find and fix these weaknesses…
Video: Cybersecurity Thinking to Reinvent Democracy
Watch the Video or Read the Transcript on RSAConference.com
Democracy is a system: a complex nonlinear tightly coupled system of systems that’s surprisingly vulnerable to hacking, subversion and exploits of all kinds. Our community has expertise in securing complex systems. Can we apply that thinking to design of democratic systems, especially socio-technical systems in the age of increasingly pervasive data collection, ubiquitous computing, and capable AI?
Audio: Book Bite: A Hacker’s Mind
Listen to the Audio on NextBigIdeaClub.com
Bruce Schneier is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is a cryptographer, computer security professional, and privacy specialist. He has been called a “security guru” by The Economist.
Below, Bruce shares 5 key insights from his new book, A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back.
1. Hacking is ubiquitous.
We normally think about hacking as something done to computers, but any system of rules can be hacked. Take the tax code as an example. It’s not computer code, but its code is a series of rules, of algorithms. It has vulnerabilities—we call them loopholes. It has exploits—we call them tax avoidance strategies. And there is an industry of black hat hackers finding exploitable vulnerabilities, whom we call tax attorneys and tax accountants…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.