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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.

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
Seems
Jack
Officious
Power
Arbitrary
Booted
Everything
Quick
Tsa
Believe
Assume
Thugs
Drunk
Thug
Assuming
Transparency
Bunch
Included
Stories
Accountability

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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There's an entire flight simulator hidden in every copy of Microsoft Excel 97.
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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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People often represent the weakest link in the security chain and are chronically responsible for the failure of security systems.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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This is not the internet the world needs, or the internet its creators envisioned. We need to take it back. And by we, I mean the engineering community.
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Only amateurs attack machines professionals target people.
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Metadata equals surveillance it's that simple.
Bruce Schneier
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If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don't understand the problems and you don't understand the technology.
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Technical problems can be remediated. A dishonest corporate culture is much harder to fix.
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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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It is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws we need to protect ourselves with mathematics.
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Given the credible estimate that we've spent $1 trillion on anti-terrorism security
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The more technological a society is, the greater the security gap is.
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