Canadian legislators proposed 19,600 amendments —almost certainly AI-generated—to a bill in an attempt to delay its adoption. I wrote about many different legislative delaying tactics in A Hacker’s Mind, but this is a new one. [...]

The paperback version of A Hacker’s Mind has just been published. It’s the same book, only a cheaper format. But—and this is the real reason I am posting this—Amazon has significantly discounted the hardcover to $15 to get rid of its stock. This is much …

Ben Rothke chose A Hacker’s Mind as “the best information security book of 2023.” [...]

Selling miniature replicas to unsuspecting shoppers: Online marketplaces sell tiny pink cowboy hats. They also sell miniature pencil sharpeners, palm-size kitchen utensils, scaled-down books and camping chairs so small they evoke the Stonehenge scene in “This Is Spinal Tap.” Many of the minuscule objects aren’t clearly advertised. [...] But …

The islands of Åland are an important tax hack : Although Åland is part of the Republic of Finland, it has its own autonomous parliament. In areas where Åland has its own legislation, the group of islands essentially operates as an independent nation. This allows Scandinavians to avoid the notoriously …

Interesting New York Times article about high-school students hacking the grading system. What’s not helping? The policies many school districts are adopting that make it nearly impossible for low-performing students to fail—they have a grading floor under them, they know it, and that allows them to game …

This article talks about new Mexican laws about food labeling, and the lengths to which food manufacturers are going to ensure that they are not effective. There are the typical high-pressure lobbying tactics and lawsuits. But there’s also examples of companies hacking the laws: Companies like Coca-Cola and …

In my latest book, A Hacker’s Mind, I wrote about hacks as loophole exploiting. This is a great example: The Wisconsin governor used his line-item veto powers—supposedly unique in their specificity—to change a one-year funding increase into a 400-year funding increase. He took this wording: Section …

My latest book continues to sell well. Its ranking hovers between 1,500 and 2,000 on Amazon. It’s been spied in airports. Reviews are consistently good. I have been enjoying giving podcast interviews. It all feels pretty good right now. You can order a signed book from …

Tuesday was the official publication date of A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back. It broke into the 2000s on the Amazon best-seller list. Reviews in the New York Times, Cory Doctorow’s blog, Science, and the Associated Press …

A Hacker’s Mind will be published on Tuesday. I have done a written interview and a podcast interview about the book. It’s been chosen as a “ February 2023 Must-Read Book ” by the Next Big Idea Club. And an “Editor’s Pick”—whatever that means—on Amazon. There …

Early in his career, Kevin Mitnick successfully hacked California law. He told me the story when he heard about my new book, which he partially recounts his 2012 book, Ghost in the Wires. The setup is that he just discovered that there’s warrant for his arrest by the …

Publisher’s Weekly reviewed A Hacker’s Mind —and it’s a starred review! “Hacking is something that the rich and powerful do, something that reinforces existing power structures,” contends security technologist Schneier ( Click Here to Kill Everybody ) in this excellent survey of exploitation. Taking a broad understanding of …

Booklist reviews A Hacker’s Mind : Author and public-interest security technologist Schneier ( Data and Goliath, 2015) defines a “hack” as an activity allowed by a system “that subverts the rules or norms of the system [...] at the expense of someone else affected by the system.” In accessing the security …

This article talks about public land in the US that is completely surrounded by private land, which in some cases makes it inaccessible to the public. But there’s a hack: Some hunters have long believed, however, that the publicly owned parcels on Elk Mountain can be legally reached …

Kirkus reviews A Hacker’s Mind : A cybersecurity expert examines how the powerful game whatever system is put before them, leaving it to others to cover the cost. Schneier, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and author of such books as Data and Goliath and Click Here To Kill …

I have a new book coming out in February. It’s about hacking. A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back isn’t about hacking computer systems; it’s about hacking more general economic, political, and social systems. It generalizes …