full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Bruce Schneier: The security mirage

Unscramble the Blue Letters


We rely on government agencies to tell us what pharmaceuticals are safe. I flew here yesterday. I didn't check the airplane. I relied on some other gurop to determine whether my plane was safe to fly. We're here, none of us fear the roof is going to collapse on us, not because we checked, but because we're pretty sure the bliindug cdoes here are good. It's a model we just accept pretty much by faith. And that's OK.

Now, what we want is people to get familiar enough with better models, have it rcelefted in their feelings, to allow them to make security trade-offs. When these go out of whack, you have two options. One, you can fix people's feelings, directly appeal to felniegs. It's manipulation, but it can work. The second, more honest way is to actually fix the meodl. cnhage happens slowly. The smoking daetbe took 40 years — and that was an easy one. Some of this stuff is hard. Really, though, information seems like our best hope.

Open Cloze


We rely on government agencies to tell us what pharmaceuticals are safe. I flew here yesterday. I didn't check the airplane. I relied on some other _____ to determine whether my plane was safe to fly. We're here, none of us fear the roof is going to collapse on us, not because we checked, but because we're pretty sure the ________ _____ here are good. It's a model we just accept pretty much by faith. And that's OK.

Now, what we want is people to get familiar enough with better models, have it _________ in their feelings, to allow them to make security trade-offs. When these go out of whack, you have two options. One, you can fix people's feelings, directly appeal to ________. It's manipulation, but it can work. The second, more honest way is to actually fix the _____. ______ happens slowly. The smoking ______ took 40 years — and that was an easy one. Some of this stuff is hard. Really, though, information seems like our best hope.

Solution


  1. debate
  2. change
  3. building
  4. codes
  5. reflected
  6. feelings
  7. model
  8. group

Original Text


We rely on government agencies to tell us what pharmaceuticals are safe. I flew here yesterday. I didn't check the airplane. I relied on some other group to determine whether my plane was safe to fly. We're here, none of us fear the roof is going to collapse on us, not because we checked, but because we're pretty sure the building codes here are good. It's a model we just accept pretty much by faith. And that's OK.

Now, what we want is people to get familiar enough with better models, have it reflected in their feelings, to allow them to make security trade-offs. When these go out of whack, you have two options. One, you can fix people's feelings, directly appeal to feelings. It's manipulation, but it can work. The second, more honest way is to actually fix the model. Change happens slowly. The smoking debate took 40 years — and that was an easy one. Some of this stuff is hard. Really, though, information seems like our best hope.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
feel secure 4
cognitive biases 3
people feel 3
burglar alarm 2
risk decisions 2
rare risks 2
false sense 2
feelings match 2
match reality 2
security theater 2
swine flu 2
people thought 2
seat belt 2


Important Words


  1. accept
  2. agencies
  3. airplane
  4. appeal
  5. building
  6. change
  7. check
  8. checked
  9. codes
  10. collapse
  11. debate
  12. determine
  13. easy
  14. faith
  15. familiar
  16. fear
  17. feelings
  18. fix
  19. flew
  20. fly
  21. good
  22. government
  23. group
  24. hard
  25. honest
  26. hope
  27. information
  28. manipulation
  29. model
  30. models
  31. options
  32. people
  33. pharmaceuticals
  34. plane
  35. pretty
  36. reflected
  37. relied
  38. rely
  39. roof
  40. safe
  41. security
  42. slowly
  43. smoking
  44. stuff
  45. whack
  46. work
  47. years
  48. yesterday