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A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend them Back

by Bruce Schneier (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 376 ratings
Editors' pick Best Nonfiction
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It’s not just computers―hacking is everywhere.

Legendary cybersecurity expert and New York Times best-selling author Bruce Schneier reveals how using a hacker’s mindset can change how you think about your life and the world.

A hack is any means of subverting a system’s rules in unintended ways. The tax code isn’t computer code, but a series of complex formulas. It has vulnerabilities; we call them “loopholes.” We call exploits “tax avoidance strategies.” And there is an entire industry of “black hat” hackers intent on finding exploitable loopholes in the tax code. We call them accountants and tax attorneys.

In A Hacker’s Mind, Bruce Schneier takes hacking out of the world of computing and uses it to analyze the systems that underpin our society: from tax laws to financial markets to politics. He reveals an array of powerful actors whose hacks bend our economic, political, and legal systems to their advantage, at the expense of everyone else.

Once you learn how to notice hacks, you’ll start seeing them everywhere―and you’ll never look at the world the same way again. Almost all systems have loopholes, and this is by design. Because if you can take advantage of them, the rules no longer apply to you.

Unchecked, these hacks threaten to upend our financial markets, weaken our democracy, and even affect the way we think. And when artificial intelligence starts thinking like a hacker―at inhuman speed and scale―the results could be catastrophic.

But for those who would don the “white hat,” we can understand the hacking mindset and rebuild our economic, political, and legal systems to counter those who would exploit our society. And we can harness artificial intelligence to improve existing systems, predict and defend against hacks, and realize a more equitable world.

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  1. ISBN-10
    0393866661
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0393866667
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    February 7, 2023
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    6.3 x 1.1 x 9.4 inches
  7. Print length
    304 pages
  8. See all details
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From the Publisher

Praise for A Hacker's Mind from Publishers Weekly

Praise for A Hacker's Mind from Kirkus Reviews

An Amazon Best Book of the Month in Nonfiction

Praise for A Hacker's Mind from Beth Simone Noveck

Editorial Reviews

Review

"That Schneier has pushed himself beyond his own comfort zone, confronting hacking as something bigger and more multifaceted than simply sand in the machinery of digital systems is what makes A Hacker's Mind unique and valuable. If his message is received, our social systems will soon begin to evolve to interact with hacking with greater agility, nuance, and even―in some instances―appreciation."
― Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Science

"A Hacker's Mind…sheds vital light on the beginnings of our journey into an increasingly complex world."
― Becky Hogge, Financial Times

"Hairsplitting, workarounds, weaselly little shortcuts: these are all hacks... Reading A Hacker’s Mind, I began to envision modernity as a rat’s nest of interconnected Rube Goldberg machines held together with Scotch tape and faith: a maze of leaks and patches just begging to be hacked. Only the rich and powerful, Schneier believes, have the resources to exploit these vulnerabilities, and they’re seldom penalized; instead, their hacks are normalized and celebrated."
― Dan Piepenbring, New York Times Book Review

"Schneier provides an easily digestible, mind-opening treatise on how hacking exacerbates inequality."
― Frank Bajak, AP

"Schneier sees everything from tax avoidance to electoral gerrymandering as hacking and suggests that the hackers we should worry about are not teenagers in hooded sweatshirts, but accountants, lawyers and lobbyists in suits."
― Ethan Zuckerman, Prospect

"For long-time readers of Schneier, the subject matter will be familiar, but this iteration of Schneier's core security literacy curriculum has an important new gloss: power."
― Cory Doctorow, Pluralist

"Schneier’s fascinating work illustrates how susceptible many systems are to being hacked and how lives can be altered by these subversions. Schneier's deep dive into this cross-section of technology and humanity makes for investigative gold."
― Philip Zozzaro, Booklist

"Elegantly probing the mechanics of exploitation, Schneier makes a persuasive case that 'we need society’s rules and laws to be as patchable as your computer.' With lessons that extend far beyond the tech world, this has much to offer."
― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"An eye-opening, maddening book that offers hope for leveling a badly tilted playing field."
― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"They say that rules are made to be broken, but more often rules are gamed, finessed, worked around, or subverted―in short, hacked. No one is better equipped than Bruce Schneier to explain how this often-perverse use of human ingenuity can undermine the institutions that civilized life depends on. A Hacker’s Mind is an important source of new insights on the forces that can sap the vigor and integrity of modern society."
― Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of Rationality

"A Hacker’s Mind brilliantly explains how our society and democracy are being shaped by people taking the ‘hacking’ mentality into realms that weren’t designed to be hacked. Bruce Schneier shows how hacking, the tool of the rebel and the outsider, can also be used by the rich and powerful to win in business and politics, at great cost to the civic commitment needed for our free society. A great read and an important book!"
― Timothy H. Edgar, author of Beyond Snowden

"An essential new perspective on hacking: the bad and the ugly, but also a surprisingly optimistic way of using a hacker mentality to solve society’s complex problems."
― Marietje Schaake, international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center and member of European Parliament, 2009–2019

"By uncovering how the rich, powerful, and clever are misusing our institutions for their own gain, A Hacker’s Mind will transform how you think about the challenges our society faces and how to fix them. Erudite and funny, Bruce Schneier’s book is a must-read for anyone concerned about our democracy in the digital and data age."
― Beth Simone Noveck, author of Solving Public Problems

About the Author

Bruce Schneier is a renowned security technologist who has written over one dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Data and Goliath and Click Here to Kill Everybody. He teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (February 7, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393866661
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393866667
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 1.1 x 9.4 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 376 ratings

About the author

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Bruce Schneier

Bruce Schneier

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Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a "security guru" by The Economist. He is the author of 12 books -- including "Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World" -- as well as hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. His influential newsletter "Crypto-Gram" and blog "Schneier on Security" are read by over 250,000 people. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, a program fellow at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and an Advisory Board member of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He is also the Chief Technology Officer of Resilient Systems, Inc.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
376 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

allan
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2024
Verified Purchase
Excellent book for anyone who wants to know what hacking is. Bruce is a well known and well educated person in security and has a knack to convey information for the lay and professional alike. I highly recommend this book.
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Lori
4.0 out of 5 stars A good read
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2023
Verified Purchase
This book is a good read, informative, not to complex and yet clear enough to get the message across to his readers.
2 people found this helpful
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Doug Calidas
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly creative application of hacking principles to a wide variety of contexts
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2024
Verified Purchase
Bruce's reputation as a technologist speaks for itself. What's most pleasant about this book - and much of Bruce's writing - is the incredibly wide scope of discussion. The use of "hacking" as a lens for understanding how political and legal strategies are pursued is illuminating, and Bruce does a fantastic job of demonstrating why this mode of analysis produces valuable insights. This is a book that is hard to put down, and I read it from cover to cover as soon as I picked it up. Highly recommended.
One person found this helpful
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Earl Ax
5.0 out of 5 stars Easy read, non technical
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2024
Verified Purchase
This is not a book written only for computer nerds, this is a book that computer nerds will give as gifts to the boring people they love in hopes of germinating a mindset of creativity and self protection.
One person found this helpful
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Daniele
3.0 out of 5 stars Biased book, especially about politics
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2024
Verified Purchase
I am a citizen of Hungary and Poland (from Europe) and the author is stating total misinformation about the political systems of those 2 countries (page 174-175). In Poland the united opposition managed to win the elections in 2023 against the previously ruling conservative party. If there would be a dictatorship obviously it could not happen.
Also throughout the book the author seems to repetitively provide negative examples about conservative values and subconciously promoting liberal values.
Otherwise the book is interesting and contains great stories.
One person found this helpful
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Tarah M. Wheeler
5.0 out of 5 stars it’s hard to explain the offensive security mindset but Schneier brings it off
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2023
Verified Purchase
People who see the world orthogonally, like Bruce Schneier, are somewhat cursed. Schneier explains how, with that mindset, it’s difficult to *not* see insecurities, breaks in the system, opportunities for stressing any system using its own rules against it, and the gaps where there are assumptions instead of tested security measures.

The analogies are clear and useful, the narrative is a quick read, and Schneier actually explains a method for learning how to think like a hacker. I’ll be recommending it to the people I know who want to understand how a particular mindset can both be a problem and a prerequisite for a well-paying job.

Disclaimer: I read and gave comments on a prior version, but this is the beautiful finished product. Good work.
16 people found this helpful
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Jan Dziekan
4.0 out of 5 stars Broken Feedback Loop
Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
I believe this to be the Bruce's most encompassing book. To me, it was also the most depressing. While the author firmly believes that regulation should be the dominant way of enforcing security (we can't trust market forces to do that at all), on the other hand he provides countless examples of governing systems being hackable themselves. It does not matter if we are talking about computer code or human laws - both are sets of rules with loopholes to exploit. And when it comes to the law - hackers tend to be the powerful. It is the billionaires and corporations who can legally pay almost no taxes, who can finance the lobbyists to keep the law sprawling and vague. Most probably they will also be the first to employ AI to find new exploits at the speed beyond the capacity of any lawmaker.
2 people found this helpful
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Doug C.
5.0 out of 5 stars Bruce has illustrated the hacking landscape very well
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2023
Verified Purchase
I have followed Bruce’s email newsletter for some years, but this is the first book of his that I have read. He has summarized the situation brilliantly. This book is good for hacking newcomers and oldsters alike.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

David H Davis
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read on cybersecurity and background on hacking
Reviewed in Canada on June 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
Good read well written
I highly recommend
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Michael Gibson
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 7, 2023
Verified Purchase
Just what I wanted.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking
Reviewed in Singapore on May 21, 2023
Verified Purchase
A wonderful work by one of the most prominent security writers of our time. Delves into a wide spectrum of disciplines and explains how powerful actors are exploiting these to their benefit, and how we can fight back for a more just and impartial society.
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Waldo Rochow
2.0 out of 5 stars A biased view predominantly targeting political influence.
Reviewed in Canada on July 31, 2023
Verified Purchase
Sure, hackers influence all quarters of society. Point taken... and accepted.

I quit reading after 172/252 pages because the author is clearly trying to hack the political system of the United States, a country in which I have no influence. By focusing so heavily on the activities of one party against the other (I usually agree with the later), the author has revealed his bias. He turned what could have been a useful examination of the type of person that hacks systems into just another dead tree.

It may be worth the money if you live in, or are concerned about, the United States of America... but don't count on it.
Report
G.C.
4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but also read Jaron Lanier
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 12, 2024
Verified Purchase
I eagerly anticipated reading A Hackers Mind, being a long-time follower of Bruce Schneier’s blog. A Hackers Mind caters to the well-informed individual. Schneier commences by defining what constitutes a hacker, delving into the essence of hacking and its widespread prevalence.

Subsequently, Schneier takes us on a journey into a hackers mind, guiding us through fundamental hacks targeting:
ATMs (automatic teller machines or cash machines)
Casinos
Airline frequent flier miles
Sports systems
Financial networks
The legal realm
Politics

Through these examples, Schneier aims to illustrate the parasitic nature of hacks on the systems they target, offering various techniques to impede or render them unfeasible. In doing so, he makes a broader socio-political statement about how the very foundation of the economy and society is continuously ‘hacked’.

The implication is that power lies in a hacker’s mind being applied to the systems that govern our lives. And that with the right mindset and ‘hack’ the ordinary person can turn the tables on those in power.
When this happens it makes great film or television. (A classic example of this would be ITV’s People vs. Post Office which told the story of postmasters combating wrongful prosecutions due to software defects. The reality was that in that particular case, it actually took the media coverage around the TV drama being shown to actually start moving the needle.)

Schneier in his book recognises that over time societies have evolved to become more equitable over time. He also attributes late stage capitalism to the hackers mindset, mixed with resources and technical capability in law or finance. The book is designed to wake the public up with a view to them also developing a A Hackers Mind and hacking the system back to equilibrium.

It’s an interesting light read, but I think VR pioneer and author Jaron Lanier writes better books focusing on the inequities inherent in the intersection of technology, culture and society. A great example of this is his book Who Owns The Future?

I don’t think Schneier gets close to inspiring his desired outcome with A Hacker’s Mind, but if you want something above the usual airport reading then it gets a thumps up from me, but it won’t be staying on my book shelf for me to re-read it at a later date. For more book reviews and recommendations go here. For recommendations of non-fiction books in particular go here.
Customer image
G.C.
4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but also read Jaron Lanier
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 12, 2024
I eagerly anticipated reading A Hackers Mind, being a long-time follower of Bruce Schneier’s blog. A Hackers Mind caters to the well-informed individual. Schneier commences by defining what constitutes a hacker, delving into the essence of hacking and its widespread prevalence.

Subsequently, Schneier takes us on a journey into a hackers mind, guiding us through fundamental hacks targeting:
ATMs (automatic teller machines or cash machines)
Casinos
Airline frequent flier miles
Sports systems
Financial networks
The legal realm
Politics

Through these examples, Schneier aims to illustrate the parasitic nature of hacks on the systems they target, offering various techniques to impede or render them unfeasible. In doing so, he makes a broader socio-political statement about how the very foundation of the economy and society is continuously ‘hacked’.

The implication is that power lies in a hacker’s mind being applied to the systems that govern our lives. And that with the right mindset and ‘hack’ the ordinary person can turn the tables on those in power.
When this happens it makes great film or television. (A classic example of this would be ITV’s People vs. Post Office which told the story of postmasters combating wrongful prosecutions due to software defects. The reality was that in that particular case, it actually took the media coverage around the TV drama being shown to actually start moving the needle.)

Schneier in his book recognises that over time societies have evolved to become more equitable over time. He also attributes late stage capitalism to the hackers mindset, mixed with resources and technical capability in law or finance. The book is designed to wake the public up with a view to them also developing a A Hackers Mind and hacking the system back to equilibrium.

It’s an interesting light read, but I think VR pioneer and author Jaron Lanier writes better books focusing on the inequities inherent in the intersection of technology, culture and society. A great example of this is his book Who Owns The Future?

I don’t think Schneier gets close to inspiring his desired outcome with A Hacker’s Mind, but if you want something above the usual airport reading then it gets a thumps up from me, but it won’t be staying on my book shelf for me to re-read it at a later date. For more book reviews and recommendations go here. For recommendations of non-fiction books in particular go here.
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