I'm reading "Beyond Fear" by Bruce Schneier. There's a paragraph right at the end of Chapter 3 which affected me quite a lot. It's something a lot of people have been trying to tell me for a long time but I didn't listen. It's about security, but I think it's relevant to a lot of other situations. Perhaps I just needed to have it said to me in these terms by someone I look up to as much as I do to Schneier:
"It's pointless to hope that a wave of selfless, nonsubjective security sensibilities will suddenly sweep across society. The agendas of, and the power relationships between, players are an inevitable part of the process; to think otherwise is to delude yourself. Security will always be a balancing game between various players and their agendas, so if you want a level of security that matches your agenda and your ideas of risk management, you're going to have to approach it as a social problem. Don't underestimate, or gloss over, the differences among players."
"It's pointless to hope that a wave of selfless, nonsubjective security sensibilities will suddenly sweep across society. The agendas of, and the power relationships between, players are an inevitable part of the process; to think otherwise is to delude yourself. Security will always be a balancing game between various players and their agendas, so if you want a level of security that matches your agenda and your ideas of risk management, you're going to have to approach it as a social problem. Don't underestimate, or gloss over, the differences among players."
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