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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.

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
Line
Security
Amateurs
Lines
Personnel
Asks
Amateur
Surprised
Shouldn
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More quotes by Bruce Schneier

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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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Surveillance is the business model of the Internet.
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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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Secret courts making secret rulings on secret laws, and companies flagrantly lying to consumers about the insecurity of their products and services, undermine the very foundations of our society.
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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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It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.
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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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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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ID can be hijacked, and cards can be faked. All of the 9/11 terrorists had fake IDs, yet they still got on the planes. If the British national ID card can't be faked, it will be the first on the planet.
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Privacy is a fundamental human need.
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Only amateurs attack machines professionals target people.
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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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When my mother gets a prompt 'Do you want to download this?' she's going to say yes. It's disingenuous for Microsoft to give you all of these tools with which to hang yourself, and when you do, then say it's your fault.
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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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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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More people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks, which shows you how good we are at evaluating risk.
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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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There's an entire flight simulator hidden in every copy of Microsoft Excel 97.
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It doesn't matter how good the card is if the issuance process is flawed.
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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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