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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
Asked
User
Usually
Screwed
Internet
Regularly
Security
Ensure
Answers
Users
Firsts
Average
Nothing
Computer
First
Answer
Euthanasia

More quotes by Bruce Schneier

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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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Given the credible estimate that we've spent $1 trillion on anti-terrorism security
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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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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 types of encryption: one that will prevent your sister from reading your diary and one that will prevent your government.
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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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Only amateurs attack machines professionals target people.
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Privacy is a fundamental human need.
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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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Cryptography products may be declared illegal, but the information will never be
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Don't make the mistake of thinking you're Facebook's customer, you're not - you're the product.
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Choosing providers is not a choice between surveillance/not it's just choosing which feudal lord gets to spy on you.
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Air travel survived decades of terrorism, including attacks which resulted in the deaths of everyone on the plane. It survived 9/11. It'll survive the next successful attack. The only real worry is that we'll scare ourselves into making air travel so onerous that we won't fly anymore.
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The more technological a society is, the greater the security gap is.
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Metadata equals surveillance it's that simple.
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Surveillance is the business model of the Internet.
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A colleague once told me that the world was full of bad security systems designed by people who read Applied Cryptography
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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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The user's going to pick dancing pigs over security every time.
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There's an entire flight simulator hidden in every copy of Microsoft Excel 97.
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