I recently read Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness (I blog briefly about it here), which got me to thinking about the tricks the brain plays on us and how this might apply to security. Interestingly, not long after that Dr. Bruce Schneier posted a paper titled The Psychology of Security, which he presented at the 2007 RSA Conference. In reading through his paper, I found a considerable amount of similarity with Gilbert's book, which was interesting. More interesting, however, were insights I've gained into how we as infosec practitioners might be able to better present security concepts to consumers and customers so that they'll welcome what we offer, rather than resist security improvements.
Following are my notes from reading Schneier's paper, plus some additional follow-up.
late last week. It is an absolute must-read for anybody interested in Middle East politics. What I found most enlightening about the book is that his storytelling is not filtered through the typical western media lens, meaning we actually get to see real history from the first person. Quite striking is how this differs vastly from the reality presented to us on a daily basis. The bottom line to the book is this: Israel has done everything possible to undermine the peace process over the last 30 years, actively working against anyone and everyone. They've gone so far as to instigate armed conflict on the precipice of historic peace agreements, quite possibly to spawn a violent response that could be used to manipulate their own people into supporting irrational, non-peaceful behavior.
