Bruce Schneier Quotes
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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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The user's going to pick dancing pigs over security every time.
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People don't understand computers. Computers are magical boxes that do things. People believe what computers tell them.
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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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The lesson here is that it is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws; we need to protect ourselves with mathematics. Encryption is too important to be left solely to governments.
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Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy our country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage.
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You can't defend. You can't prevent. The only thing you can do is detect and respond.
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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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There's an entire flight simulator hidden in every copy of Microsoft Excel 97.
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When people are scared, they need something done that will make them feel safe, even if it doesn't truly make them safer. Politicians naturally want to do something in response to crisis, even if that something doesn't make any sense. But unfortunately for politicians, the security measures that work are largely invisible.
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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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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'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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I am regularly asked what the average Internet user can do to ensure his security. My first answer is usually 'Nothing; you're screwed'.
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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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No one can duplicate the confidence that RSA offers after 20 years of cryptanalytic review.
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It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.