Up-to-the-minute observations from a world-famous security expert Bruce Schneier is known worldwide as the foremost authority and commentator on every security issue from cyber-terrorism to airport surveillance.

Introduction xv 1 The Business and Economics of Security 1 Consolidation: Plague or Progress 1 Prediction: RSA Conference Will Shrink Like a Punctured Balloon 2 How to Sell Security 4 Why People Are Willing to Take Risks 4 How to Sell Security 6 Why Do We Accept Signatures by Fax? 7 The Pros and Cons of LifeLock 9 The Problem Is Information Insecurity 12 Security ROI: Fact or Fiction? 14 The Data Imperative 15 Caveat Emptor 16 Social Networking Risks 17 Do You Know Where Your Data Are? 18 Be Careful When You Come to Put Your Trust in the Clouds 21 Is Perfect Access Control Possible? 22 News Media Strategies for Survival for Journalists 24 Security and Function Creep 26 Weighing the Risk of Hiring Hackers 27 Should Enterprises Give In to IT Consumerization at the Expense of Security? 29 The Vulnerabilities Market and the Future of Security 30 So You Want to Be a Security Expert 33 When It Comes to Security, We re Back to Feudalism 34 I Pledge Allegiance to the United States of Convenience 35 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 36 You Have No Control Over Security on the Feudal Internet 37 2 Crime, Terrorism, Spying, and War 41 America s Dilemma: Close Security Holes, or Exploit Them Ourselves 41 Are Photographers Really a Threat? 43 CCTV Doesn t Keep Us Safe, Yet the Cameras Are Everywhere 45 Chinese Cyberattacks: Myth or Menace? 47 How a Classic Man-in-the-Middle Attack Saved Colombian Hostages 48 How to Create the Perfect Fake Identity 51 A Fetishistic Approach to Security Is a Perverse Way to Keep Us Safe 52 The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Terrorists 54 Why Society Should Pay the True Costs of Security 56 Why Technology Won t Prevent Identity Theft 58 Terrorists May Use Google Earth, but Fear Is No Reason to Ban It 60 Thwarting an Internal Hacker 62 An Enterprising Criminal Has Spotted a Gap in the Market 65 We Shouldn t Poison Our Minds with Fear of Bioterrorism 66 Raising the Cost of Paperwork Errors Will Improve Accuracy 68 So-Called Cyberattack Was Overblown 70 Why Framing Your Enemies Is Now Virtually Child s Play 72 Beyond Security Theater 73 Feeling and Reality 74 Refuse to Be Terrorized 76 Cold War Encryption Is Unrealistic in Today s Trenches 77 Profiling Makes Us Less Safe 80 Fixing Intelligence Failures 81 Spy Cameras Won t Make Us Safer 82 Scanners, Sensors Are Wrong Way to Secure the Subway 84 Preventing Terrorist Attacks in Crowded Areas 86 Where Are All the Terrorist Attacks? 87 Hard to Pull Off 88 Few Terrorists 88 Small Attacks Aren t Enough 89 Worst-Case Thinking Makes Us Nuts, Not Safe 89 Threat of Cyberwar Has Been Hugely Hyped 92 Cyberwar and the Future of Cyber Conflict 94 Why Terror Alert Codes Never Made Sense 96 Debate Club: An International Cyberwar Treaty Is the Only Way to Stem the Threat 97 Overreaction and Overly Specific Reactions to Rare Risks 99 Militarizing Cyberspace Will Do More Harm Than Good 101 Rhetoric of Cyber War Breeds Fear and More Cyber War 103 Attacks from China 103 GhostNet 104 Profitable 105 The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On 105 Why FBI and CIA Didn t Connect the Dots 107 The FBI s New Wiretapping Plan Is Great News for Criminals 109 US Offensive Cyberwar Policy 112 3 Human Aspects of Security 117 Secret Questions Blow a Hole in Security 117 When You Lose a Piece of Kit, the Real Loss Is the Data It Contains 118 The Kindness of Strangers 120 Blaming the User Is Easy But It s Better to Bypass Them Altogether 122 The Value of Self-Enforcing Protocols 123 Reputation Is Everything in IT Security 125 When to Change Passwords 127 The Big Idea: Bruce Schneier 129 High-Tech Cheats in a World of Trust 131 Detecting Cheaters 134 Lance Armstrong and the Prisoner s Dilemma of Doping in Professional Sports 137 The Doping Arms Race as Prisoner s Dilemma 138 The Ever-Evolving Problem 139 Testing and Enforcing 140 Trust and Society 141 How Secure Is the Papal Election? 143 The Court of Public Opinion 147 On Security Awareness Training 150 Our New Regimes of Trust 152 4 Privacy and Surveillance 155 The Myth of the Transparent Society 155 Our Data, Ourselves 157 The Future of Ephemeral Conversation 158 How to Prevent Digital Snooping 160 Architecture of Privacy 162 Privacy in the Age of Persistence 164 Should We Have an Expectation of Online Privacy? 167 Offhand but On Record 168 Google s and Facebook s Privacy Illusion 171 The Internet: Anonymous Forever 173 A Taxonomy of Social Networking Data 175 The Difficulty of Surveillance Crowdsourcing 177 The Internet Is a Surveillance State 179 Surveillance and the Internet of Things 181 Government Secrets and the Need for Whistleblowers 184 Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government 187 5 Psychology of Security 189 The Security Mindset 189 The Difference between Feeling and Reality in Security 191 How the Human Brain Buys Security 194 Does Risk Management Make Sense? 195 How the Great Conficker Panic Hacked into Human Credulity 197 How Science Fiction Writers Can Help, or Hurt, Homeland Security 198 Privacy Salience and Social Networking Sites 201 Security, Group Size, and the Human Brain 203 People Understand Risks But Do Security Staff Understand People? 205 Nature s Fears Extend to Online Behavior 206 6 Security and Technology 209 The Ethics of Vulnerability Research 209 I ve Seen the Future, and It Has a Kill Switch 211 Software Makers Should Take Responsibility 212 Lesson from the DNS Bug: Patching Isn t Enough 214 Why Being Open about Security Makes Us All Safer in the Long Run 216 Boston Court s Meddling with Full Disclosure Is Unwelcome 218 Quantum Cryptography: As Awesome as It Is Pointless 220 Passwords Are Not Broken, but How We Choose Them Sure Is 222 America s Next Top Hash Function Begins 223 Tigers Use Scent, Birds Use Calls Biometrics Are Just Animal Instinct 225 The Secret Question Is: Why Do IT Systems Use Insecure Passwords? 227 The Pros and Cons of Password Masking 229 Technology Shouldn t Give Big Brother a Head Start 231 Lockpicking and the Internet 233 The Battle Is On against Facebook and Co. to Regain Control of Our Files 235 The Difficulty of Un-Authentication 237 Is Antivirus Dead? 238 Virus and Protocol Scares Happen Every Day but Don t Let Them Worry You 240 The Failure of Cryptography to Secure Modern Networks 242 The Story behind the Stuxnet Virus 244 The Dangers of a Software Monoculture 247 How Changing Technology Affects Security 249 The Importance of Security Engineering 251 Technologies of Surveillance 253 When Technology Overtakes Security 255 Rethinking Security 255 7 Travel and Security 259 Crossing Borders with Laptops and PDAs 259 The TSA s Useless Photo ID Rules 261 The Two Classes of Airport Contraband 262 Fixing Airport Security 264 Laptop Security while Crossing Borders 265 Breaching the Secure Area in Airports 268 Stop the Panic on Air Security 269 A Waste of Money and Time 271 Why the TSA Can t Back Down 273 The Trouble with Airport Profiling 275 8 Security, Policy, Liberty, and Law 279 Memo to Next President: How to Get Cybersecurity Right 279 CRB Checking 281 State Data Breach Notification Laws: Have They Helped? 283 How to Ensure Police Database Accuracy 285 How Perverse Incentives Drive Bad Security Decisions 287 It s Time to Drop the Expectation of Privacy Test 288 Who Should Be in Charge of Cybersecurity? 291 Coordinate, but Distribute Responsibility 294 Zero Tolerance Really Means Zero Discretion 295 US Enables Chinese Hacking of Google 297 Should the Government Stop Outsourcing Code Development? 299 Punishing Security Breaches 300 Three Reasons to Kill the Internet Kill Switch Idea 302 Internet without Borders 302 Unpredictable Side Effects 303 Security Flaws 303 Web Snooping Is a Dangerous Move 304 The Plan to Quarantine Infected Computers 307 Close the Washington Monument 310 Whitelisting and Blacklisting 312 Securing Medical Research: a Cybersecurity Point of View 313 Fear Pays the Bills, but Accounts Must Be Settled 317 Power and the Internet 319 Danger Lurks in Growing New Internet Nationalism 321 IT for Oppression 323 The Public/Private Surveillance Partnership 325 Transparency and Accountability Don t Hurt Security They re Crucial to It 327 It s Smart Politics to Exaggerate Terrorist Threats 329 References 333 Index 347

"A primer in practical computer security aimed at those shopping, communicating, or doing business online — almost everyone, in other words."
—The Economist

"A rich, insightfully fresh take on what security really means!"
—David Ropeik, author of How Risky Is It, Really?

"The closest the security industry has to a rock star."
—The Register

What you think you know about security is probably all wrong

We seem to be more security-conscious now than at any time in our history, yet the headlines scream of bombings, mass shootings, Chinese cyberattacks, and the NSA perusing your e-mail.

What's wrong here?

Widely acclaimed as the quintessential security expert, Bruce Schneier might also be seen as the conscience of the security industry. The bestselling author of Secrets and Lies and Liars and Outliers has been sounding the alarm for years. This collection of more than 155 of Schneier's most thought-provoking essays provides an unvarnished look at what's not working, what can work, and why we need to get busy.

It's time we listened.

For years, security sage Bruce Schneier has been warning us about the true security risks in our wired-up world, and revealing the illusions we construct to convince ourselves — wrongly — that we are safe.

He unmasked the smoke and mirrors behind airport security checks that make us feel safer without actually making us safer...why the FBI's wiretapping plan is in fact a boon to the bad guys...how the trust essential to a functioning society has been replaced with security measures that merely alter the level of risk.

Now, in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing and chemical attacks in Syria, Schneier presents this anthology of more than 155 of his most insightful essays. Here you will find thought-provoking assessments of security and technology; the psychological, human, business, and economic aspects of security; privacy and surveillance; crime, terrorism, spying, and war; liberty and law; and much, much more.

You'll discover

• Why our computer security is a feudal system
• How science fiction writers can affect homeland security
• Why profiling actually makes us less safe
• The myth of the transparent society
• Google's and Facebook's privacy illusion
• Why the FBI and CIA failed to connect the dots on the Boston Marathon bombers
• The story behind the Stuxnet virus
• Who should really be in charge of cybersecurity
• How the US enabled the Chinese hacking of Google
• Why scanners and sensors are the wrong way to secure the subway system

Embark on this fascinating, unsettling journey into the real world of 21st-century security. And pay attention. Our future is at stake.