He does have a talent for it…
Schneier on Security: At a security conference recently, the moderator asked the panel of distinguished cybersecurity leaders what their nightmare scenario was. The answers were the predictable array of large-scale attacks: against our communications infrastructure, against the power grid, against the financial system, in combination with a physical attack.
I didn’t get to give my answer until the afternoon, which was: “My nightmare scenario is that people keep talking about their nightmare scenarios.”
2 responses
I like the next bit too:
“There’s a certain blindness that comes from worst-case thinking. An extension of the precautionary principle, it involves imagining the worst possible outcome and then acting as if it were a certainty. It substitutes imagination for thinking, speculation for risk analysis, and fear for reason. It fosters powerlessness and vulnerability and magnifies social paralysis”
Yeah, it’s pretty much the default security philosophy in the US right now, although to be fair to the Obama administration, they do seem to be moving past it. Very slowly though.
In related news, the semi-finalists in his annual movie plot contest are in: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/05/fifth_annual_mo_1.html