You can't defend. You can't prevent. The only thing you can do is detect and respond. Bruce Schneier More Quotes by Bruce Schneier More Quotes From Bruce Schneier There's an entire flight simulator hidden in every copy of Microsoft Excel 97. Bruce Schneier microsoftflightexcellence It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state. Bruce Schneier hygienepolicetechnology Privacy is a fundamental human need. Bruce Schneier privacyfundamentalsneeds 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. Bruce Schneier engineeringcommunitymean 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. Bruce Schneier geekcomputerfundamentals The question to ask when you look at security is not whether this makes us safer, but whether it's worth the trade-off. Bruce Schneier askstradelooks Corporate and government surveillance aren't separate; they're an alliance of interests. Bruce Schneier alliancessurveillancegovernment Terrorism isn't a crime against people or property. It's a crime against our minds, using the death of innocents and destruction of property to make us fearful. Terrorists use the media to magnify their actions and further spread fear. And when we react out of fear, when we change our policy to make our country less open, the terrorists succeed -- even if their attacks fail. But when we refuse to be terrorized, when we're indomitable in the face of terror, the terrorists fail -- even if their attacks succeed. Bruce Schneier mediacountrypeople 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. Bruce Schneier datainformationthinking Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. The sooner people accept this, and build business models that take this into account, the sooner people will start making money again. Bruce Schneier tryingwaterpeople Choosing providers is not a choice between surveillance/not; it's just choosing which feudal lord gets to spy on you. Bruce Schneier surveillancespychoices Surveillance of power is one of the most important ways to ensure that power does not abuse its status. But, of course, power does not like to be watched. Bruce Schneier abuseimportantdoe The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act. And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want [...] Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we're terrified, and we share that fear, we help. Bruce Schneier scarerealwriting The very definition of news is something that hardly ever happens. If an incident is in the news, we shouldn't worry about it. It's when something is so common that its no longer news - car crashes, domestic violence - that we should worry. Bruce Schneier domestic-violencecarworry It's frustrating; terrorism is rare and largely ineffectual, yet we regularly magnify the effects of both their successes and failures by terrorizing ourselves. Bruce Schneier success-and-failurefrustratingterrorism Computer security can simply be protecting your equipment and files from disgruntled employees, spies, and anything that goes bump in the night, but there is much more. Computer security helps ensure that your computers, networks, and peripherals work as expected all the time, and that your data is safe in the event of hard disk crash or a power failure resulting from an electrical storm. Computer security also makes sure no damage is done to your data and that no one is able to read it unless you want them to. Bruce Schneier damage-is-donedatanight 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. Bruce Schneier sillyrunningcards Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people. Bruce Schneier targetmachinespeople Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers. Seems like you can scare any public into allowing the government to do anything with those four. Bruce Schneier four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypsegovernmentchildren Buy American Doesn’t Sell Well Anymore Because It Means Give A Copy To The NSA Bruce Schneier nsagivingmean
