9 ms·

Schneier reviews: Here Comes Everybody

54 points by bdfh42 18y ago

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
Alex3917 18y ago
When I was reading this I was thinking, wow, this is a really good book review. Which, if you think about it, is kind of sad-- the fact that reviewers who are able to pick out the thesis of the book and its main arguments are the exception, rather than the rule.
- evgen 18y ago
  This speaks more to the quality of the author than the reviewers. If the author can't effectively communicate his point to people not steeped in the culture and conventions being examined then this book is not as good as you think it is.
tptacek 18y ago
You'd take him a little more seriously if he reviewed serious books, instead of having his first widely-acknowledged book review be for fellow gadfly and net-personality Clay Shirkey. When Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker and Moneyball and increasingly famous narrative journalist, reviews the literature on the economic crisis, he digs up, reproduces, and editorializes curated news articles from the 1989 crash; prior to that, he published a 9,382,382,293 page compendium of the fundamental work in economics. But we pay attention to blog post reviews of blog post books, because... we're fans, I guess? Sorry. I feel compelled to keep questioning why we take this guy so seriously.
- alecco 18y ago
  Yes. Schneier is the Seth Godin of IT security, it's self-marketroid personality cult. I have to admit I usually agree with his positions but more often than not I don't like his reasoning. Also he tends to talk about things out of his sphere of knowledge.
  - gjm11 18y ago
    That's not entirely fair; he got famous by writing a big crypto book that everyone read (and I think still reads, though it's kinda dated now) and the blog-based personality cult came later. Of course, having a broad understanding of cryptographic algorithms doesn't guarantee being a good pundit on security issues. (Schneier has written some perfectly decent books in his security-pundit role, too, but they aren't definitive in the way that "Practical Cryptography" arguably was.)
    - tptacek 18y ago
      He got famous by writing "Applied Cryptography", a technical book about cryptography that is well regarded among laypeople and poorly regarded among practitioners. "Practical Cryptography", the book you cited (which he co-authored with Niel Ferguson, a well-regarded cryptographer), contains Schneier's own disavowal of "Applied". "Applied" is "definitive" among laypeople and generalist programmers. "Practical" is an excellent book, but I dispute that it is in any way "definitive". More people have the evil red book on their desk than the good black book.
      - gjm11 18y ago
        Oops, sorry, mixed up the titles. I meant to write PC where I wrote AC. If PC disavows AC, then I've failed to find the disavowal by looking up the pointers to AC in the index of PC. There's something nearer to a disavowal in "Secrets and Lies", but it still doesn't go further than (I paraphrase) "I focused on the algorithms, but actually other stuff matters more". (Both books mention that plenty of very bad systems have been built by people who read AC and thought they were therefore experts, but I don't think it's fair to blame that on AC.) There's a reason why I put "arguably" in front of "definitive" :-). But the point is that what got Schneier famous was writing a big fat book, with lots of technical content, that a lot of people read and were impressed by. That may be less solid than writing a big book that deserves to impress everyone, but it's not at all the same thing as pure blogging bloviation. (AC doesn't seem so very bad to me, aside from being out of date and being too much of an unassimilated algorithm-dump, but then I'm a generalist rather than a security professional.)
- ntoshev 18y ago
  Maybe we pay attention because... they have interesting things to say? Why discuss an ad hominem argument here?
  - tptacek 18y ago
    The title of the post is, "Schneier reviews: Here Comes Everybody". If the title had been "Smith reviews: Here Comes Everybody", it wouldn't have an upvote. It's newsworthy because of who wrote it, and comments about the newsworthiness of a story (and, if you read carefully, the content of the article) are germane to discussion. We have to stop throwing around the term "ad hominem" as if talking about people and their authority is automatically out of bounds. We're a sprawling collection of personality cults, and the echo chamber affect is a real issue. Or am I not still reading Zed vs. DHH spats here?
    - corentin 18y ago
      > If the title had been "Smith reviews: Here Comes Everybody", it wouldn't have an upvote. That's because it's far from conveying as much information as the alternative.
    - ntoshev 18y ago
      To me it is not newsworthy because of who wrote it: the name of the author is just a predictor of quality. If the predictor is wrong in this particular case, tell me about it, and then I'll be willing to hear why it is wrong in general. He may have become famous undeservedly; it doesn't matter as long as this particular article is good.
      - tptacek 18y ago
        I'm not attacking you. You obviously just have a different perspective than me on this issue. That's why we have comments.
        ntoshev 18y ago
        I know you are not attacking me, but I wish you were attacking my argument :) or author's arguments, for that matter :)
- bestes 18y ago
  I read him because I get a little smarter each time I read one of his posts.

54 points by bdfh42 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

When I was reading this I was thinking, wow, this is a really good book review. Which, if you think about it, is kind of sad-- the fact that reviewers who are able to pick out the thesis of the book and its main arguments are the exception, rather than the rule.

evgen 18y ago
This speaks more to the quality of the author than the reviewers. If the author can't effectively communicate his point to people not steeped in the culture and conventions being examined then this book is not as good as you think it is.

tptacek 18y ago

You'd take him a little more seriously if he reviewed serious books, instead of having his first widely-acknowledged book review be for fellow gadfly and net-personality Clay Shirkey. When Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker and Moneyball and increasingly famous narrative journalist, reviews the literature on the economic crisis, he digs up, reproduces, and editorializes curated news articles from the 1989 crash; prior to that, he published a 9,382,382,293 page compendium of the fundamental work in economics. But we pay attention to blog post reviews of blog post books, because... we're fans, I guess? Sorry. I feel compelled to keep questioning why we take this guy so seriously.

alecco 18y ago
Yes. Schneier is the Seth Godin of IT security, it's self-marketroid personality cult. I have to admit I usually agree with his positions but more often than not I don't like his reasoning. Also he tends to talk about things out of his sphere of knowledge.
- gjm11 18y ago
  That's not entirely fair; he got famous by writing a big crypto book that everyone read (and I think still reads, though it's kinda dated now) and the blog-based personality cult came later. Of course, having a broad understanding of cryptographic algorithms doesn't guarantee being a good pundit on security issues. (Schneier has written some perfectly decent books in his security-pundit role, too, but they aren't definitive in the way that "Practical Cryptography" arguably was.)
  - tptacek 18y ago
    He got famous by writing "Applied Cryptography", a technical book about cryptography that is well regarded among laypeople and poorly regarded among practitioners. "Practical Cryptography", the book you cited (which he co-authored with Niel Ferguson, a well-regarded cryptographer), contains Schneier's own disavowal of "Applied". "Applied" is "definitive" among laypeople and generalist programmers. "Practical" is an excellent book, but I dispute that it is in any way "definitive". More people have the evil red book on their desk than the good black book.
    - gjm11 18y ago
      Oops, sorry, mixed up the titles. I meant to write PC where I wrote AC. If PC disavows AC, then I've failed to find the disavowal by looking up the pointers to AC in the index of PC. There's something nearer to a disavowal in "Secrets and Lies", but it still doesn't go further than (I paraphrase) "I focused on the algorithms, but actually other stuff matters more". (Both books mention that plenty of very bad systems have been built by people who read AC and thought they were therefore experts, but I don't think it's fair to blame that on AC.) There's a reason why I put "arguably" in front of "definitive" :-). But the point is that what got Schneier famous was writing a big fat book, with lots of technical content, that a lot of people read and were impressed by. That may be less solid than writing a big book that deserves to impress everyone, but it's not at all the same thing as pure blogging bloviation. (AC doesn't seem so very bad to me, aside from being out of date and being too much of an unassimilated algorithm-dump, but then I'm a generalist rather than a security professional.)
ntoshev 18y ago
Maybe we pay attention because... they have interesting things to say? Why discuss an ad hominem argument here?
- tptacek 18y ago
  The title of the post is, "Schneier reviews: Here Comes Everybody". If the title had been "Smith reviews: Here Comes Everybody", it wouldn't have an upvote. It's newsworthy because of who wrote it, and comments about the newsworthiness of a story (and, if you read carefully, the content of the article) are germane to discussion. We have to stop throwing around the term "ad hominem" as if talking about people and their authority is automatically out of bounds. We're a sprawling collection of personality cults, and the echo chamber affect is a real issue. Or am I not still reading Zed vs. DHH spats here?
  - corentin 18y ago
    > If the title had been "Smith reviews: Here Comes Everybody", it wouldn't have an upvote. That's because it's far from conveying as much information as the alternative.
  - ntoshev 18y ago
    To me it is not newsworthy because of who wrote it: the name of the author is just a predictor of quality. If the predictor is wrong in this particular case, tell me about it, and then I'll be willing to hear why it is wrong in general. He may have become famous undeservedly; it doesn't matter as long as this particular article is good.
    - tptacek 18y ago
      I'm not attacking you. You obviously just have a different perspective than me on this issue. That's why we have comments.
      - ntoshev 18y ago
        I know you are not attacking me, but I wish you were attacking my argument :) or author's arguments, for that matter :)
bestes 18y ago
I read him because I get a little smarter each time I read one of his posts.