BRUCE SCHNEIER
"Amateurs hack systems; professionals hack people"
Defending Humans
Author of over a dozen books, including "Applied Cryptography" (1994), the book that first made real cryptography broadly accessible, and his newest, "Rewiring Democracy" (2025)
Titled the "security guru" by The Economist
Fellow, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University; Board Member, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Coined the terms "security theater" and "movie-plot threat"
Publisher of the newsletter Crypto-Gram and blog "Schneier on Security," read by over 250,000 people
Friday
3:20 PM
AI and Trust
Trusting a friend and trusting a service are fundamentally different. The former is personal and intimate, while the latter is impersonal and can scale to all of human society. The companies behind the current generative AI systems are poised to exploit that difference. Their intimate conversational nature will cause us to think of them as friends when they are actually services, and trusted confidants when they will actually be working against us. Moreover, any serious AI application requires us to be sure that the models are secure. The second is a matter of technology. The first is a matter of policy. Both will require government regulation of the industry, which is how we create social trust in our society.
Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a “security guru” by The Economist. He is the author of over one dozen books—including his latest, Rewiring Democracy—as well as hundreds of articles and essays, and many more academic papers. His influential newsletter Crypto-Gram and his blog Schneier on Security are read by over 250,000 people. He has testified before Congress, is a frequent guest on television and radio, served on several government technical committees, and is regularly quoted in the press.