I just published my third collection of essays: We Have Root. This book covers essays from 2013 to 2017. (The first two are Schneier on Security and Carry On.) There is nothing in this book is that is not available for free on my website; but if you’d like these essays in an easy-to-carry paperback … Read More “I Have a New Book: We Have Root” »
Category: essays
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The United States government’s continuing disagreement with the Chinese company Huawei underscores a much larger problem with computer technologies in general: We have no choice but to trust them completely, and it’s impossible to verify that they’re trustworthy. Solving this problem which is increasingly a national security issue will require us to both … Read More “Supply-Chain Security and Trust” »
The trade war with China has reached a new industry: subway cars. Congress is considering legislation that would prevent the world’s largest train maker, the Chinese-owned CRRC Corporation, from competing on new contracts in the United States. Part of the reasoning behind this legislation is economic, and stems from worries about Chinese industries undercutting the … Read More “On Chinese “Spy Trains”” »
Influence operations are elusive to define. The Rand Corp.’s definition is as good as any: “the collection of tactical information about an adversary as well as the dissemination of propaganda in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent.” Basically, we know it when we see it, from bots controlled by the Russian Internet Research … Read More “Influence Operations Kill Chain” »
Yesterday, Attorney General William Barr gave a major speech on encryption policy — what is commonly known as “going dark.” Speaking at Fordham University in New York, he admitted that adding backdoors decreases security but that it is worth it. Some hold this view dogmatically, claiming that it is technologically impossible to provide lawful access … Read More “Attorney General William Barr on Encryption Policy” »
When the next pandemic strikes, we’ll be fighting it on two fronts. The first is the one you immediately think about: understanding the disease, researching a cure and inoculating the population. The second is new, and one you might not have thought much about: fighting the deluge of rumors, misinformation and flat-out lies that will … Read More “Fake News and Pandemics” »
According to foreign policy experts and the defense establishment, the United States is caught in an artificial intelligence arms race with China — one with serious implications for national security. The conventional version of this story suggests that the United States is at a disadvantage because of self-imposed restraints on the collection of data and … Read More “Data, Surveillance, and the AI Arms Race” »
The term “fake news” has lost much of its meaning, but it describes a real and dangerous Internet trend. Because it’s hard for many people to differentiate a real news site from a fraudulent one, they can be hoodwinked by fictitious news stories pretending to be real. The result is that otherwise reasonable people believe … Read More “Fraudulent Academic Papers” »
I don’t have a lot of good news for you. The truth is there’s nothing we can do to protect our data from being stolen by cybercriminals and others. Ten years ago, I could have given you all sorts of advice about using encryption, not sending information over email, securing your web connections, and a … Read More “Protecting Yourself from Identity Theft” »
To better understand influence attacks, we proposed an approach that models democracy itself as an information system and explains how democracies are vulnerable to certain forms of information attacks that autocracies naturally resist. Our model combines ideas from both international security and computer security, avoiding the limitations of both in explaining how influence attacks may … Read More “Defending Democracies Against Information Attacks” »