Hagai Bar-El on Security

This is a brilliant TED Talk by Niro Sivanathan.

It introduces the dilution effect. Information that is less relevant is not merely discarded, but rather dilutes the impact of the information that is relevant. So next time you bring up arguments for something, remember that your arguments don’t add up – they average out.

TEDTalk: The counterintuitive way to be more persuasive

The book “Think Like a Rocket Scientist” by Ozan Varol (a real rocket scientist, actually), has nothing to do with Security. However, I do have the habit of sharing recommendations on such resources as well, and this piece is certainly worthy of such a recommendation.

The text promotes the deployment of thought processes that are often used in engineering and science (primarily in rocket science, where mistakes are costly), by everyone. The motivation of this book is probably a quote brought by Carl Sagan: “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge”; a statement with which I could not agree more.

The book covers a few principles and delves into each one of them with excellent examples and historic facts, all written in an engaging style. Some of the topics that the author discusses are:

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The book “Permanent Record” is best known for its author, Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who released enormous amounts of secret NSA documents to the press, alleging that the intelligence community in the US violates the rights of citizens for privacy by implementing wide-reaching programs of wholesale surveillance. This is the second book I review that discusses Ed Snowden and his revelations; the previous book I reviewed was “No Place to Hide” by journalist Glenn Greenwald.

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After sitting in my reading list for years, I finally got to read “Data and Goliath” by Bruce Schneier. Overall, this book is as well written as all of Schneier’s books, and is just as scientifically accurate (to the best that I could tell). However, whoever the audience for his book is, they may find it missing essential parts that make it not just a pleasant read, but also a useful one.

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I will be speaking at the GSA Israel Executive Forum on October 14,2015.

The keynote I will deliver is titled: “Security: the Key Challenge to IoT Adoption”.

For more information visit the event website.

Added on 2015-10-15: You can find the keynote slide-deck attached to this post.

This is an untypical management book. Aside of the fact that it is very well written, it is full of insights that you can actually relate to and use. It makes sense, and unlike other management books that “make sense” because they preach obvious trivialities, this one brings up points that are truly insightful.

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TED published an excellent talk: Why Privacy Matters, by Glenn Greenwald.

Seldom do I call an online lecture “a must for all audience", but the TED lecture by Glenn Greenwald is worth such an enforcement. Glenn Greenwald is one of the key reporters who published material based on the leaks of Edward Snowden. He also wrote a good book about it called “No Place to Hide"; a book on which I wrote a review about 6 months ago.

If you know that privacy is important, but cannot explain why people who’ve done nothing wrong need it, or worse yet, if you really do not see why a surveillance state is bad also for law-abiding citizens, then you must listen to this. It packs hours of social, psychological, and public policy discussions into a few minutes.

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