Quote

I am regularly asked what the average Internet user can do to ensure his security. My first answer is usually 'Nothing you're screwed'.

Bruce Schneier

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Bruce Schneier
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: January 15
Computer Scientist
Cryptographer
Mathematician
Physicist
Writer
New York City
New York
Security
Ensure
Answers
Users
Firsts
Average
Nothing
Computer
First
Answer
Euthanasia
Asked
User
Usually
Screwed
Internet
Regularly

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It doesn't matter how good the card is if the issuance process is flawed.
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If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security.
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Technical problems can be remediated. A dishonest corporate culture is much harder to fix.
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Why is it that we all - myself included - believe these stories? Why are we so quick to assume that the TSA is a bunch of jack-booted thugs, officious and arbitrary and drunk with power? It's because everything seems so arbitrary, because there's no accountability or transparency in the DHS.
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It is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws we need to protect ourselves with mathematics.
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Microsoft made a big deal about Windows NT getting a C2 security rating. They were much less forthcoming with the fact that this rating only applied if the computer was not attached to a network and had no network card, and had its floppy drive epoxied shut, and was running on a Compaq 386. Solaris's C2 rating was just as silly.
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Only amateurs attack machines professionals target people.
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It's frustrating terrorism is rare and largely ineffectual, yet we regularly magnify the effects of both their successes and failures by terrorizing ourselves.
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It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.
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The user's going to pick dancing pigs over security every time.
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Think of your existing power as the exponent in an equation that determines the value of information. The more power you have, the more additional power you derive from the new data.
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But in this country, while you have to be competent to pull off a terrorist attack, you don't have to be competent to cause terror. All you need to do is start plotting an attack and - regardless of whether or not you have a viable plan, weapons or even the faintest clue - the media will aid you in terrorizing the entire population.
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There are two kinds of cryptography in this world: cryptography that will stop your kid sister from reading your files, and cryptography that will stop major governments from reading your files.
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Anyone, from the most clueless amateur to the best cryptographer, can create an algorithm that he himself can't break.
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When a big company lays you off, they often give you a year's salary to 'go pursue a dream.' If you're stupid, you panic and get another job. If you're smart, you take the money and use the time to figure out what you want to do next.
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People often represent the weakest link in the security chain and are chronically responsible for the failure of security systems.
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Surveillance is the business model of the Internet.
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Privacy is a fundamental human need.
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The fundamental driver in computer security, in all of the computer industry, is economics. That requires a lot of re-education for us security geeks.
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The question to ask when you look at security is not whether this makes us safer, but whether it's worth the trade-off.
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