Bruce Schneier quotes

More people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks, which shows you how good we are at evaluating risk. (Bruce Schneier)
Digital files cannot be made uncopyable, any more than water can be made not wet. View quote
Bruce Schneier
Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people. View quote
Bruce Schneier
... if anyone thinks they can get an accurate picture of anyplace on the planet by reading news reports, they're sadly mistaken. View quote
Bruce Schneier
It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state. View quote
Bruce Schneier
There are two kinds of cryptography in this world: cryptography that will stop your kid sister from reading your files, and cryptography that will stop major governments from reading your files. View quote
Bruce Schneier
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. View quote
Bruce Schneier
Technical problems can be remediated. A dishonest corporate culture is much harder to fix. View quote
Bruce Schneier
Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet. Here's an example. Go to Amazon.com. Buy a book without using SSL. Watch the total lack of chaos. View quote
Bruce Schneier
We can't keep weapons out of prisons; we can't possibly expect to keep them out of airports. View quote
Bruce Schneier
The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. 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. (Bruce Schneier)
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. View quote
Bruce Schneier
When my mother gets a prompt 'Do you want to download this?' she's going to say yes. It's disingenuous for Microsoft to give you all of these tools [in Internet Explorer] with which to hang yourself, and when you do, then say it's your fault. View quote
Bruce Schneier
Anyone, from the most clueless amateur to the best cryptographer, can create an algorithm that he himself can't break. View quote
Bruce Schneier
If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don't understand the problems and you don't understand the technology. View quote
Bruce Schneier
It's certainly easier to implement bad security and make it illegal for anyone to notice than it is to implement good security. View quote
Bruce Schneier
Against the average user, anything works; there's no need for complex security software. Against the skilled attacker, on the other hand, nothing works. View quote
Bruce Schneier
There are two types of encryption: one that will prevent your sister from reading your diary and one that will prevent your government. View quote
Bruce Schneier
Well-designed security systems fail gracefully. View quote
Bruce Schneier
Elections serve two purposes. The first, and obvious, purpose is to accurately choose the winner. But the second is equally important: to convince the loser. View quote
Bruce Schneier
I mean, the computer industry promises nothing. Did you ever read a shrink-wrapped license agreement? You should read one. It basically says, if this product deliberately kills your children, and we knew it would, and we decided not to tell you because it might harm sales, we're not liable. I mean, it says stuff like that. They're absurd documents. You have no rights. (Bruce Schneier)
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. View quote
Bruce Schneier
Not being angels is expensive. View quote
Bruce Schneier
In China, programs have to be certified by the government in order to be used on computers there, which sounds an awful lot like the Apple store. View quote
Bruce Schneier
I am regularly asked what the average Internet user can do to ensure his security. My first answer is usually 'Nothing; you're screwed'. View quote
Bruce Schneier