Schneier Mulls Psychology of Security

bednarz writes "Cryptography expert Bruce Schneier says security decisions often are much less rational than one would prefer. He spoke at the RSA conference about the battle that goes on in the brain when responding to security issues. Schneier explains 'The primitive portion of the brain, called the amygdala, feels fear and incites a fear-or-flight response, he pointed out. "It's very fast, faster than consciousness. But it can be overridden by higher parts of the brain." The neocortex, which in a mammalian brain is associated with consciousness, is slower but "adaptive and flexible,"'"

Comments

instant vs. considered responses

[smellsofbikes]

Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" talks a lot about the differences between first impression and actual, thoughtful reaction to a situation, including some interesting studies on what happens when the two conflict and how measurement of the effects of those conflicts on reaction time can tell us a lot about how the brain is processing material. There's controversy around some of his conclusions but I strongly recommend the book and everything else Gladwell has written.

Re:Just look to government....

[Lord Ender]

There's a lot of focus on OMG-deadly high-profile terrorist attacks, and on OMG-deadly consequences of global warming.

Terrorism could cause a tiny handful of people to die. Warming could cause a mass extinction. Do you understand what I mean by mass extinction? I mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_extinction.

One of these is a minor annoyance to the human species. The other is the end of life as we know it. Some have even suggested that run-away global warming caused Venus to become the hell-hole it is today. These are very different problems.

You are right that politicians, in general, care more about the appearance of solving problems than actually solving problems. But don't equate global warming with the relatively trivial issue of terrorism.