Liars and Outliers Bruce Schneier : Enabling the Trust That Society Needs to Thrive

How does society function when you can't trust everyone?When we think about trust, we naturally think about personal relationships or bank vaults. That's too narrow. Trust is much broader, and much more important. Nothing in society works without trust. It's the foundation of communities, commerce, democracy—everything.In this insightful and entertaining book, Schneier weaves together ideas from across the social and biological sciences to explain how society induces trust. He shows how trust works and fails in social settings, communities, organizations, countries, and the world.In today's hyper-connected society, understanding the mechanisms of trust is as important as understanding electricity was a century ago. Issues of trust and security are critical to solving problems as diverse as corporate responsibility, global warming, and our moribund political system. After reading Liars and Outliers, you'll think about social problems, large and small, differently.AUTHOR BIOBRUCE SCHNEIER is an internationally renowned security technologist who studies the human side of security. He is the author of eleven books; and hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. He has testified before Congress, is a frequent guest on television and radio, and is regularly quoted in the press. His blog and monthly newsletter at www.schneier.com reach over devoted 250,000 devoted readers world-wide."The closest thing the security industry has to a rock star."—The RegisterADVANCE PRAISE FOR LIARS AND OUTLIERS"A rich, insightfully fresh take on what security really means!"—DAVID ROPEIK, Author of How Risky is it, Really?"Schneier has accomplished a spectacular tour de force: an enthralling ride through history, economics, and psychology, searching for the meanings of trust and security. A must read."—ALESSANDRO ACQUISTI, Associate Professor of Information Systems and Public Policy at the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University"Liars and Outliers offers a major contribution to the understandability of these issues, and has the potential to help readers cope with the ever-increasing risks to which we are being exposed. It is well written and delightful to read."—PETER G. NEUMANN, Principal Scientist in the SRI International Computer Science Laboratory"Whether it's banks versus robbers, Hollywood versus downloaders, or even the Iranian secret police against democracy activists, security is often a dynamic struggle between a majority who want to impose their will, and a minority who want to push the boundaries. Liars and Outliers will change how you think about conflict, our security, and even who we are."—ROSS ANDERSON, Professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge University and author of Security Engineering"Readers of Bruce Schneier's Liars and Outliers will better understand technology and its consequences and become more mature practitioners."—PABLO G. MOLINA, Professor of Technology Management, Georgetown University"Liars & Outliers is not just a book about security—it is the book about it. Schneier shows that the power of humour can be harnessed to explore even a serious subject such as security. A great read!"—FRANK FUREDI, author of On Tolerance: A Defence of Moral Independence"This fascinating book gives an insightful and convincing framework for understanding security and trust."—JEFF YAN, Founding Research Director, Center for Cybercrime and Computer Security, Newcastle University"By analyzing the moving parts and interrelationships among security, trust, and society, Schneier has identifi ed critical patterns, pressures, levers, and security holes within society. Clearly written, thoroughly interdisciplinary, and always smart, Liars and Outliers provides great insight into resolving society's various dilemmas."—JERRY KANG, Professor of Law, UCLA"By keeping the social dimension of trust and security in the center of his analysis, Schneier breaks new ground with an approach that both theoretically grounded and practically applicable."—JONATHAN ZITTRAIN, Professor of Law and Computer Science, Harvard University and author of The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It"Eye opening. Bruce Schneier provides a perspective you need to understand today’s world."—STEVEN A. LEBLANC, Director of Collections, Harvard University and author of Constant Battles: Why We Fight"An outstanding investigation of the importance of trust in holding society together and promoting progress. Liars and Outliers provides valuable new insights into security and economics."—ANDREW ODLYZKO, Professor, School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota"What Schneier has to say about trust—and betrayal—lays a groundwork for greater understanding of human institutions. This is an essential exploration as society grows in size and complexity."—JIM HARPER, Director of Information Policy Studies, CATO Institute and author of Identity Crisis: How Identification is Overused and Misunderstood"Society runs on trust. Liars and Outliers explains the trust gaps we must fill to help society run even better."—M. ERIC JOHNSON, Director, Glassmeyer/McNamee Center for Digital Strategies, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College"An intellectually exhilarating and compulsively readable analysis of the subtle dialectic between cooperation and defection in human society. Intellectually rigorous and yet written in a lively, conversational style, Liars and Outliers will change the way you see the world."—DAVID LIVINGSTONE SMITH, author of Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others"Schneier tackles trust head on, bringing all his intellect and a huge amount of research to bear. The best thing about this book, though, is that it's great fun to read."—ANDREW MCAFEE, Principal Research Scientist, MIT Center for Digital Business and co-author of Race Against the Machine"Bruce Schneier is our leading expert in security. But his book is about much more than reducing risk. It is a fascinating, thought-provoking treatise about humanity and society and how we interact in the game called life."—JEFF JARVIS, author of Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live"Both accessible and thought provoking, Liars and Outliers invites readers to move beyond fears and anxieties about security in modern life to understand the role of everyday people in creating a healthy society. This is a must-read!"—DANAH BOYD, Research Assistant Professor in Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University"Trust is the sine qua non of the networked age and trust is predicated on security. Bruce Schneier’s expansive and readable work is rich with insights that can help us make our shrinking world a better one."—DON TAPSCOTT, co-author of Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Businessand the World"An engaging and wide-ranging rumination on what makes society click. Highly recommended."—JOHN MUELLER, author of Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe ThemAmazon.com ReviewQ&A with Bruce Schneier, Author of \*Liars and Outliers\*Bruce Schneier, AuthorIn your book, Liars and Outliers, you write, "Trust and cooperation are the first problems we had to solve before we could become a social species--but in the 21st century, they have become the most important problems we need to solve again." What do you mean by trust?That is the right question to ask, since there are many different definitions of trust floating around. The trust I am writing about isn't personal, it's societal. By my definition, when we trust a person, an institution, or a system, we trust they will behave as we expect them to. It's more consistency or predictability than intimacy. And if you think about it, this is exactly the sort of trust our complex society runs on. I trust airline pilots, hotel clerks, ATMs, restaurant kitchens, and the company that built the computer I'm writing these answers on.What makes people trustworthy?That's the key question the book tackles. Most people are naturally trustworthy, but some are not. There are hotel clerks who will steal your credit card information. There are ATMs that have been hacked by criminals. Some restaurant kitchens serve tainted food. There was even an airline pilot who deliberately crashed his Boeing 767 into the Atlantic Ocean in 1999. Given that there are people who are naturally inclined to be untrustworthy, how does society keep their damage to a minimum? We use what I call societal pressures: morals and reputation are two, laws are another, and security systems are a fourth. Basically, it's all coercion. We coerce people into behaving in a trustworthy manner because society will fall apart if they don't.You introduce the idea of defectors--those who don't follow "the rules." What are defectors?One of the central metaphors of the book is the Prisoner's Dilemma, which sets up the conflict between the interests of a group and the interests of individuals within the group. Cooperating--or acting in a trustworthy manner--sometimes means putting group interest ahead of individual interest. Defecting means acting in one's self-interest as opposed to the group interest. To put it in concrete terms: we are collectively better off if no one steals, but I am individually better off if I steal other people's stuff. But if everyone did that, society would collapse. So we need societal pressures to induce cooperation--to prevent people from stealing.There are two basic types of defectors. In this example, the first are people who know stealing is wrong, but steal anyway. The second are people who believe that, in some circumstances, stealing is right. Think of Robin Hood, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Or Jean Valjean from Les Miserables, who stole to feed his starving family.Why are some defectors good for society?Cooperators are people who follow the formal or informal rules of society. Defectors are people who, for whatever reason, break the rules. That definition says nothing about the absolute morality of the society or its rules. When society is in the wrong, it's defectors who are in the vanguard for change. So it was defectors who helped escaped slaves in the antebellum American South. It's defectors who are agitating to overthrow repressive regimes in the Middle East. And it's defectors who are fueling the Occupy Wall Street movement. Without defectors, society stagnates.What major news stories of the past decade were triggered by failed trust? How can we prevent these failures in the future?The story I had in most in mind while writing the book was the global financial crisis of a few years ago, where a handful of people cheated the system to their own advantage. Those were particularly newsworthy defectors; but if you start looking, you can see defectors and the effects of their defection everywhere: in corrupt politicians, special interests subverting the tax system, file sharers downloading music and movies without paying for them, and so on. The key characteristic is a situation where the group interest is in opposition to someone's self-interest, and people have been permitted to follow their own self-interest to the greater harm of the group.What makes Liars and Outliers so relevant in today's society?As our systems--whether social systems like Facebook or political systems like Congress--get more complex, the destructive potential of defectors becomes greater. To use another term from the book, the scope of defection increases with more technology. This means that the societal pressures we traditionally put in place to limit defections no longer work, and we need to rethink security. It's easy to see this in terms of terrorism: one of the reasons terrorists are so scary today is that they can do more damage to society than the terrorists of 20 years ago could--and future technological developments will make the terrorists of 20 years from now scarier still.What do you hope readers will take away from reading Liars and Outliers?I can do no better than quote from the first chapter: "This book represents my attempt to develop a full-fledged theory of coercion and how it enables compliance and trust within groups. My goal is to rephrase some of those questions and provide a new framework for analysis. I offer new perspectives, and a broader spectrum of what's possible. Perspectives frame thinking, and sometimes asking new questions is the catalyst to greater understanding. It’s my hope that this book can give people an illuminating new framework with which to help understand the world."Review‘This book will appeal not only to customers interested in computer security but also on the idea of security and trust as a whole in society'. (The Bookseller, 16th December 2011). ‘This book should be read by anyone in a leadership role, whether they're in the corporate or political sphere... an easy read and the ideas and thoughts are profound.' (Naked Security, February 2012)

How does society function when you can't trust everyone?

When we think about trust - we naturally think about personal relationships or bank accounts. But that is much too narrow; trust is broader, and far more important. Nothing in society works without trust. It is the foundation of communities, commerce, democracy, and world stability.

In this insightful and entertaining book, Schneier weaves together ideas from across the social and biological sciences to explore how societies induce and encourage trust–and what happens when it fails in our personal lives, our businesses, communities, and the world.

In today’s hyper-connected society, understanding the mechanisms of trust is as important as understanding electricity was a century ago. Issues of trust and security are critical to solving problems as diverse as corporate responsibility, global warming, and stagnant political systems. After reading Liars and Outliers, you’ll think about social problems, large and small, with a new perspective.

"Schneier makes an original and powerful argument for rethinking society. . . . His message is full of insight into how we function, or don't function, and along the way we are constantly hearing from the giants—such as Emerson, Thoreau, Socrates, even Emily Dickinson."
—Seymour M. Hersh, New Yorker

"Deeply philosophical yet highly accessible, Liars and Outliers is more than thought-provoking—it's the kind of book that fundamentally changes the way you think."
—Daniel J. Solove, John Marshall Harlan Research Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School

"Brilliantly dissects, classifies, and orders the social dimension of security—a spectacularly palatable tonic against today's incoherent and dangerous flailing in the face of threats from terrorism to financial fraud."
—Cory Doctorow, Author of Little Brother and Makers; co-editor of BoingBoing.net

"Engaging, insightful, and thought-provoking, Liars and Outliers will alter how you think about trust and security."
—Dorothy Denning, Distinguished Professor of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, and author of Information Warfare and Security

"Without trust, nothing can be achieved. Liars and Outliers is a brilliant analysis of the role of trust in society and business."
—Claus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum

A note for e-book readers: For ease of reference, the figures used in this book are also located at www.schneier.com/lo.

We don't demand a background check on the plumber who shows up to fix the leaky sink. We don't do a chemical analysis on food we eat. Trust and cooperation are the first problems we had to solve before we could become a social species. In the 21st century, they have become the most important problems we need to solve again. Our global society has become so large and complex that our traditional trust mechanisms no longer work. Bruce Schneier, world-renowned for his level-headed thinking on security and technology, tackles this complex subject head-on. Society can't function without trust, and yet must function even when people are untrustworthy. Liars and Outliers reaches across academic disciplines to develop an understanding of trust, cooperation, and social stability. From the subtle social cues we use to recognize trustworthy people to the laws that punish the noncompliant, from the way our brains reward our honesty to the bank vaults that keep out the dishonest, keeping people cooperative is a delicate balance of rewards and punishments. It's a series of evolutionary tricks, social pressures, legal mechanisms, and physical barriers. In the absence of personal relationships, we have no choice but to substitute security for trust, compliance for trustworthiness. This progression has enabled society to scale to unprecedented complexity, but has also permitted massive global failures. At the same time, too much cooperation is bad. Without some level of rule-breaking, innovation and social progress become impossible. Society stagnates. Today's problems require new thinking, and Liars and Outliers provides that. It is essential that we learn to think clearly about trust. Our future depends on it. The book discusses securitys unique role in facilitating and stabilizing human society. It looks at how and why security evolved, why it works the way it does, and -- this is the timely part -- what is it about the information society that changes everything. Schneier will model the fundamental trade-off of societal security -- individual self-interest vs. societal group interest -- as a group prisoner's dilemma problem, and use that metaphor to examine the basic mechanics of societal security. Written in Schneiers engaging and riveting voice, the book will be divided into three parts: Understanding People, Understanding Security, and Understanding Todays World. The first part covers the Natural History of Security, The Economics of Security, The Psychology of Fear and Risk, The Psychology of Security Trade-Offs, The Honest Majority, and The Dishonest Minority. The second part covers Societal Security, The Prisoners Dilemma, Using Morals to Solve a Prisoners Dilemma, Using Reputation to Solve a Prisoners Dilemma, Using Rules to Solve a Prisoners Dilemma, and Security Solutions for a Prisoners Dilemma. And in the third part, he walks the reader through Prisoners Dilemmas in a Market Economy, Organizations and the Prisoners Dilemma, Why Does This Fail So Often?, The Prisoners Dilemma in the Information Society, and The Future of Societal Security. He concludes with the rhetorical dialogue with the reader of Does Society Need a Dishonest Minority? How does society function when you can't trust everyone? When we think about trust, we naturally think about personal relationships or bank vaults. That's too narrow. Trust is much broader, and much more important. Nothing in society works without trust. It's the foundation of communities, commerce, democracy--everything. In this insightful and entertaining book, Schneier weaves together ideas from across the social and biological sciences to explain how society induces trust. He shows how trust works and fails in social settings, communities, organizations, countries, and the world. In today's hyper-connected society, understanding the mechanisms of trust is as important as understanding electricity was a century ago. Issues of trust and security are critical to solving problems as diverse as corporate responsibility, global warming, and our moribund political system. After reading Liars and Outliers, you'll think about social problems, large and small, differently In today's hyper-connected society, understanding the mechanisms of trust is crucial. Issues of trust are critical to solving problems as diverse as corporate responsibility, global warming, and the political system. In this insightful and entertaining book, Schneier weaves together ideas from across the social and biological sciences to explain how society induces trust. He shows the unique role of trust in facilitating and stabilizing human society. He discusses why and how trust has evolved, why it works the way it does, and the ways the information society is changing everything. - Publisher.

In today's hyper-connected society, understanding the mechanisms of trust is crucial. Issues of trust are critical to solving problems as diverse as corporate responsibility, global warming, and the political system. In this insightful and entertaining book, Schneier weaves together ideas from across the social and biological sciences to explain how society induces trust. He shows the unique role of trust in facilitating and stabilizing human society. He discusses why and how trust has evolved, why it works the way it does, and the ways the information society is changing everything.

A note for readers Overview Part 1 : The science of trust. A natural history of security The evolution of cooperation A social history of trust Societal dilemmas Part 2 : A model of trust. Societal pressures Moral pressures Reputational pressures Institutional pressures Security systems Part 3 : The real world. Competing interests Organizations Corporations Institutions Part 4 : Conclusions. How societal pressures fail Technological advances The future