The Myths of Security

Chapter 16. The Cult of Schneier

There’s no doubt that the world’s leading IT security expert is Bruce Schneier. Sure, Bruce Schneier may not be a household name, but he’s certainly far better known than anyone else in the field.

Bruce definitely deserves the recognition. He’s been, by far, the most prolific security pundit out there since he started his Crypto-Gram mailing list in 1998, which he has since supplemented with a very popular blog. He’s written some great books on the security industry that are accessible to a mass market (meaning normal people can easily read them), such as Secrets and Lies (John Wiley & Sons). He comments on most things that happen in the IT security field, and he’s usually spot on—over the years, there have only been a few issues on which I’ve personally disagreed with his stance.

Bruce has had rock star status among geeks ever since he wrote Applied Cryptography (John Wiley & Sons), which is still one of the best-selling IT books out there. Undoubtedly, it is the #1 IT security book of all time. Even though the second edition of the book came out in 1996 and it hasn’t been updated since, it is still in print, and still a strong seller.

Personally, I’m quite grateful to Bruce. I believe the foreword he wrote for my first book in early 2001 (Building Secure Software, coauthored with Gary McGraw; Addison-Wesley) helped bring a lot of attention to us, the book, and maybe even the fledgling software security space (which really was only the bugtraq mailing ...