A good insight from Bruce Schneier

[unixronin]

From an IT Conversations interview with Bruce Schneier:

Doug Kaye:  Here’s my favorite quote in the whole book, and I know that you probably know which one it is!

Bruce Schneier:  Actually, I don’t!  I can’t wait!

Doug Kaye:  That “more people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks, which shows just how good we are at evaluating risks.”

Bruce Schneier:  That was actually a fun quote.  I actually went to the government web site, which actually has death statistics from various things.  You can see how many people die from lightning, from heart disease, from anything, and the results are surprising.  People tend to worry about the wrong things. 

We worry about what’s in the news.  I tell my friends that if it’s in the newspaper, don't worry about it because it means it hardly every happens.  It’s news.  News hardly every happens; that’s why it’s news!  When something stops being in the newspaper, then worry about it.

And you know, he has a point.  To quote a related saying, "One death is a tragedy; fifty thousand deaths are a statistic."

Go read the interview.  It's about Schneier's new book about how fear makes us react, and how that relates to security and the kind of security decisions it leads us to make (usually bad ones).  It'll make you think (assuming you're not already thinking this way, as a lot of us have been since well before 9/11).

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

OK, I should technically have said "recent book". :)