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Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World [Hardcover]

Bruce Schneier (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
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Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World + Schneier on Security + Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World
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Review

"Does arming pilots make flying safer? Computer security guru Schneier applies his analytical skills to real-world threats like terrorists, hijackers, and counterfeiters. BEYOND FEAR may come across as the dry, meticulous prose of a scientist, but that's actually Schneier's strength. Are you at risk or just afraid? Only by cutting away emotional issues to examine the facts, he says, will we reduce our risks enough to stop being scared." -- Wired "Schneier provides an interesting view of the notion of security, outlining a simple five-step process that can be applied to deliver effective and sensible security decisions. These steps are addressed in detail throughout the book, and applied to various scenarios to show how simple, yet effective they can be....Overall, this book is an entertaining read, written in layman's terms, with a diverse range of examples and anecdotes that reinforce the notion of security as a process." --Computing Reviews "Schneier is a rare creature... Although he made his name as an alpha geek in cryptography... [he] can also speak to laypeople about the general security matters that increasingly touch all of our lives." -- Business Week "Once again Schneier proves that he is the one of few people who indeed understands security, and what is more important and more difficult, can explain complex concepts to people not specializing in security. Whatever your trade and whatever your background, go ahead and read it ..." -- itsecurity.com  "In his new book, 'Beyond Fear', Bruce Schneier -- one of the world's leading authorities on security trade-offs -- completes the metamorphosis from cryptographer to pragmatist that began with Secrets and Lies, published in 2000." -- infoworld.com

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Many of us, especially since 9/11, have become personally concerned about issues of security, and this is no surprise. Security is near the top of government and corporate agendas around the globe. Security-related stories appear on the front page everyday. How well though, do any of us truly understand what achieving real security involves? In Beyond Fear, Bruce Schneier invites us to take a critical look at not just the threats to our security, but the ways in which we're encouraged to think about security by law enforcement agencies, businesses of all shapes and sizes, and our national governments and militaries. Schneier believes we all can and should be better security consumers, and that the trade-offs we make in the name of security - in terms of cash outlays, taxes, inconvenience, and diminished freedoms - should be part of an ongoing negotiation in our personal, professional, and civic lives, and the subject of an open and informed national discussion. With a well-deserved reputation for original and sometimes iconoclastic thought, Schneier has a lot to say that is provocative, counter-intuitive, and just plain good sense. He explains in detail, for example, why we need to design security systems that don't just work well, but fail well, and why secrecy on the part of government often undermines security. He also believes, for instance, that national ID cards are an exceptionally bad idea: technically unsound, and even destructive of security. And, contrary to a lot of current nay-sayers, he thinks online shopping is fundamentally safe, and that many of the new airline security measure (though by no means all) are actually quite effective. A skeptic of much that's promised by highly touted technologies like biometrics, Schneier is also a refreshingly positive, problem-solving force in the often self-dramatizing and fear-mongering world of security pundits. Schneier helps the reader to understand the issues at stake, and how to best come to one's own conclusions, including the vast infrastructure we already have in place, and the vaster systems--some useful, others useless or worse--that we're being asked to submit to and pay for. Bruce Schneier is the author of seven books, including Applied Cryptography (which Wired called "the one book the National Security Agency wanted never to be published") and Secrets and Lies (described in Fortune as "startlingly lively...¦[a] jewel box of little surprises you can actually use."). He is also Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Counterpane Internet Security, Inc., and publishes Crypto-Gram, one of the most widely read newsletters in the field of online security.
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
In the wake of 9/11, many of us want to reinvent our ideas about security. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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4.2 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Common sense, but who listens to that?, 4 Nov 2004
By 
Hibernia (Cork, County Cork Ireland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World (Hardcover)
Anyone involved in any kind of security should read this book. While the politicians and the hysterical media scream about face recognition, and other security panaceas, Bruce Schneier explains simply and logically why it doesn't work and proposes much simpler and more effective measures.

Take face recognition as an example. Even a system claiming 99.9% accuracy (which none are) will still fail 1 in 1000 times. How many times would it fail when used on football crowd? Or at an airport? How are the police better off when they have to deal with dozens of false positives from the most perfect system? What is the point of a system which requires every face to be logged in a database when terrorists are so sparse to begin with (and not necessarily in the database)? Obviously it's ridiculous, but this doesn't stop people claiming such nonsense will prevent another 9/11 or whatever.

Instead he advocates human intelligence - security guards who are trained to recognize signs that people are behaving oddly (or 'hinky' as one officer described a terrorist caught smuggling a bomb). This and common sense security based upon risk assessment. As one of the world's leading experts on security, his is a voice that should be listened to. Unlike his crypto books, there is no an equations to be found here. Instead he highlights his points with real world examples and analogy. This tends to become a little tiresome in places, but the point is well made.

It's too bad that someone as informed as Schneier isn't in charge of policy. Otherwise we might be in a world where money would be spent on systems which actually protect us, rather than offer faux security and inconvenience.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of very useful practical advice – and don't panic, 21 Jan 2004
By 
Keith Appleyard "kapple999" (Brighton, UK) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World (Hardcover)
Not quite what I'd expected. I'd read & enjoyed 'Secrets & Lies', and I thought this would be more of the same. This book is really a discussion about what actions have been taken post 9/11, and in parts it's a criticism of the overreaction that there has been.

However, its not overtly political, and gives dozens (perhaps a 100) practical worked examples of good & bad, effective & ineffective, responses to security issues, whether it be physical, electronic etc.

There is a 5-step process which I found useful to apply to everyday situations; and (in highly abbreviated form) these are : what are you trying to protect; what are the risks; risk mitigation; risks caused by the solution; trade-offs

The core message is : "as both individuals and a society, we can make choices about our security", and this book helps you understand how to make those informed decisions.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Security or Liberty? Both!, 10 Jan 2004
By 
takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   
This review is from: Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World (Hardcover)
I first read about Bruce Schneier in an eye-opening article by Charles Mann in the September, 2002 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It seems that you don't have to make the false choice everyone is agonizing over between security and liberty. You can have both.

Schneier's book expands on the ideas in the article. Although Schneier is a technology fan and it is his livelihood, he realizes that sometimes a live security guard can provide better security than cutting-edge (but still fallible) face-recognition scanners, for instance. He explains why national ID cards are not a good idea, and how iris-scanners can be fooled.

These are ideas for security on a large scale, for airports, nuclear and other power plants, and government websites. For security on an individual or small business scale, try Art of the Steal by Frank Abagnale. But even if you don't run a government, Beyond Fear is a fascinating read about how your government is making choices (and how they SHOULD be making choices about your security and about your rights.

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