Freakonomics Q&A With Bruce Schneier

Samrobb writes "In grand Slashdot tradition, the Freakonomics blog solicited reader questions for a Q&A session with Bruce Schneier. The blog host writes that Mr. Schneier's answers '...are extraordinarily interesting, providing mandatory reading for anyone who uses a computer. He also plainly thinks like an economist: search below for "crime pays" to see his sober assessment of why it's better to earn a living as a security expert than as a computer criminal.'" The interview covers pretty much the whole range of issues Schneier has written about, and he provides links to more detailed writings on many of the questions.

Comments

Re:strange answer on wireless

[Umuri]

I think what he means is that if you are depending on your wireless connection for security, you're already doing something wrong.

One is because most secure practices can be implemented well separate of wireless, if you are concerned with security. And in fact relying on wireless encryption as your "only" form of security is something that even most non-savvy computer users can be taught not to do, so the experienced ones should have no excuse.

The other is that most "security" for wireless has already been broken and can be repeated in a near trivial amount of time, so if someone was dead set on sniffing your data, chances are they'd be able to do it.

In my defense, I run an open wireless network that is sectioned off, that instead of encryption relies on MAC addresses to allow into the normal section of the network. Everyone not on the list just gets to use the internet.

Allows friends to come over and connect happily to the web without messing with stuff, and if they need the network access adding their computer is a 10 second job.