A Googler Embarrassed by Zuckerberg (Schneier at Google)

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Security expert and author Bruce Schneier, who explains terrifying concepts with humor and verve, stopped by the Google campus last September to promote his latest book, "Click Here to Kill Everybody."

The paradigm-shifting author parried audience questions from Googlers, such as what did Schneier mean when he said "data is a toxic asset?"

Schneier, currently teaching computer security at Harvard's Kennedy School, confessed he was "embarrassed" by congress' questions to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last April. A Googler countered that he was embarrassed by Zuckerberg's answers to congress, and asked whether techies should ask more of themselves, and broaden their humanities knowledge base?

The talk covers "security in a world where everything is a computer," and the humane Googler's question starts at the 44:06 mark:

SCHNEIER: ... a market rewards doing a bad job, hoping for the best. And I think it's too risky to allow that anymore.

GOOGLER: Hi, uh - you mentioned you were embarrassed by the Zuckerberg hearings.

SCHNEIER: I was embarrassed by the questions at the Zuckerberg hearings. Let's be clear, the congressmen embarrassed me.

GOOGLER: So I, I, so I assumed correctly. I assumed you were embarrassed by the senators? Whereas I have the opposite problem - I was embarrassed by Zuckerberg. Uh what, what I

SCHNEIER: To be fair, there's a lot of embarrassment to go around [laughter.] We can both be right!

GOOGLER: I, I have a serious point, here, though is that ... while the senators don't know about tech, I think tech doesn't know about: law, ethics, political science, philosophy...Like, do you think Mark Zuckerberg could even teach an introductory college course on free speech? Like has he even read, like, what anyone has ever said about it? So, like shouldn't we all be learning, about, the world? [laughter.]

SCHNEIER: Yes yes so so this has, this has to go in both directions. Right? I want techies in policy positions, I want policy people ... in tech companies. So yes I think we need both. We need both sides talking to each other. So so I, I agree with you 100 percent.

GOOGLER: Good. OK. [laughter.]

SCHNEIER: So right now I teach internet security at the Harvard Kennedy School. At a public policy institution. So I'm trying to push people in that direction. At the same time, there are people at Harvard in the Computer Science Department trying to teach policy issues, to go in the other direction...
Schneier in his book "Beyond Fear" popularized the term "security theater" which means "the practice of investing in countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to achieve it." His website teases the book saying, "talking about security can lead to anxiety, panic, and dread... or cool assessments, common sense and practical planning."


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Further Reading:

Feb 2019: Newly launched Aspen Tech Policy Hub is a tech policy incubator, including thought leaders from both the tech and policy world early in the process. sfchronicle.com   ðŸ“°

"A University of California professor who taught ethics in computer science one semester, generated lively discussions after assigning news articles that revealed ageism in the high tech field, he said on his blog."   offlinereport.net







This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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