Data and Goliath

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1. juunppJul 2022
   Exactly. Bruce Schneier - Data and Goliath.
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2. FnoordFeb 2018
   > So, treating the symptoms rather than the disease

   If you want to convince people with the point you're trying to make you I suggest you address the why and come up with one or more alternative, viable solutions. IOW, in short you must be constructive and I gave two examples how.

   What I quoted from you reminds me of Schneier's essay Data Is a Toxic Asset [1].

   I'm not as intelligent as Bruce Schneier so instead of using my own interpretation I will quote his essay instead.

   The relevant part in understanding the why:

   > There are three reasons. The first is that we're in the middle of the hype cycle of big data. Companies and governments are still punch-drunk on data, and have believed the wildest of promises on how valuable that data is. The research showing that more data isn't necessarily better, and that there are serious diminishing returns when adding additional data to processes like personalized advertising, is just starting to come out.

   > The second is that many organizations are still downplaying the risks. Some simply don't realize just how damaging a data breach would be. Some believe they can completely protect themselves against a data breach, or at least that their legal and public relations teams can minimize the damage if they fail. And while there's certainly a lot that companies can do technically to better secure the data they hold about all of us, there's no better security than deleting the data.

   > The last reason is that some organizations understand both the first two reasons and are saving the data anyway. The culture of venture-capital-funded start-up companies is one of extreme risk taking. These are companies that are always running out of money, that always know their impending death date.

   And some solutions:

   > We can be smarter than this. We need to regulate what corporations can do with our data at every stage: collection, storage, use, resale and disposal. We can make corporate executives personally liable so they know there's a downside to taking chances. We can make the business models that involve massively surveilling people the less compelling ones, simply by making certain business practices illegal.

   Some of his other essays as well as his most recent book Data and Goliath also covers the subject (and also addresses solutions though the solutions are unfortunately not easy; they're difficult). In one of the chapters he suggests taking a smartphone with you is a conscious choice and that we should shift from a default always taking it with you to seeing the pros and cons of such a decision.

   [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_tox...

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3. sasasDec 2017
   > Schneier is a so-called expert who has testified in front of congress

   Schneier has been around for a long time, knows the industry well and has made significant contributions. Not everyone get's things right all the time including Schneier.

   Credibility wise he ..

   - has a master's degree in computer science

   - was awarded an honorary Ph.D from the University of Westminster in London

   - is chief technology officer of BT Managed Security Solutions

   15 publications, 6 notable books -

   - Applied Cryptograph

   - Cryptography Engineering

   - Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World

   - Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World

   - Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive

   - Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World

   Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier

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4. confoundedMar 2017
   > The privacy problem at its core is a political one, and it needs a political solution.

   I'm with you --- my views are pretty much in agreement this, and with Schneier in Data and Goliath.

   However, while legislation and regulation are the only things that will prevent us from full-blown monopolistic dystopia, there are meaningful ways in which technologists can make privacy preserving behaviors easier to adopt on a wide scale.

   The most obvious example of this is Signal. It wasn't brought about because the government said it had to be built (though they did end up funding it), and not only has it significantly advanced the privacy of instant messaging for millions of people, and moved the Overton window on expectations of encryption, it provided a new open standard (and FOSS reference implementation) for other messaging services to adopt.

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5. FnoordDec 2016
   Data and Goliath - Bruce Schneier (very good, preaching to the choir in my case though)

   Dune - Frank Herbert (been waiting more than 20 years to read this. If you haven't seen the movie from 2001 highly recommended, else not)

   The Psychopath Code - Pieter Hintjens (psychology book, highly recommended, allowed me to understand a whole lot more of the "toxicity" in society)

   Python for Informatics - Charles Severance (too easy for crowd here, and for me, but quite good for newbie programmers. Note: Python 2.x; not 3.x!)

   Ghost in the Wires - Kevin Mitnick and William L. Simon (good humor, great suspense, likeable main character)

   Kingpin - Kevin Poulsen (a less likeable main character but nevertheless suspenseful)

   And a bunch of cookbooks which I won't bother you with, I didn't fully complete any of them either.

   I'm very happy that all the books I read were a hit, but did not read nearly as many as I wanted to. To restate, I can recommend all of the above. But they're not all new from 2016 (if that was the intention I apologise).

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6. faktorialasOct 2016
   States have and will routinely harass and otherwise dampen the efforts of activists, dissidents, even journalists. I think examples of that are easy to find. Furthermore, they can't really have good privacy unless everyone does.

   For a general case of the harms of privacy invasion, I recommend reading relevant chapters off of Schneier's Data and Goliath. Brilliant book.

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