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

Description

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. Introduction PART 1: HACKING 101 1.What Is Hacking? 2.Hacking Systems 3.What Is a System? 4.The Hacking Life Cycle 5.The Ubiquity of Hacking PART 2: BASIC HACKS AND DEFENSES 6.ATM Hacks 7.Casino Hacks 8.Airline Frequent-Flier Hacks 9.Sports Hacks 10.Hacks Are Parasitical 11.Defending against Hacks 12.More Subtle Hacking Defenses 13.Removing Potential Hacks in the Design Phase 14.The Economics of Defense 15.Resilience PART 3: HACKING FINANCIAL SYSTEMS 16.Hacking Heaven 17.Hacking Banking 18.Hacking Financial Exchanges 19.Hacking Computerized Financial Exchanges 20.Luxury Real Estate 21.Societal Hacks Are Often Normalized 22.Hacking the Market 23.“Too Big to Fail” 24.Venture Capital and Private Equity 25.Hacking and Wealth PART 4: HACKING LEGAL SYSTEMS 26.Hacking Laws 27.Legal Loopholes 28.Hacking Bureaucracy 29.Hacking and Power 30.Undermining Regulations 31.Jurisdictional Interactions 32.Administrative Burdens 33.Hacking Common Law 34.Hacking as Evolution PART 5: HACKING POLITICAL SYSTEMS 35.Hidden Provisions in Legislation 36.Must-Pass Legislation 37.Delegating and Delaying Legislation 38.The Context of a Hack 39.Hacking Voting Eligibility 40.Other Election Hacks 41.Money in Politics 42.Hacking to Destruction PART 6: HACKING COGNITIVE SYSTEMS 43.Cognitive Hacks 44.Attention and Addiction 45.Persuasion 46.Trust and Authority 47.Fear and Risk 48.Defending against Cognitive Hacks 49.A Hierarchy of Hacking PART 7: HACKING AI SYSTEMS 50.Artificial Intelligence and Robotics 51.Hacking AI 52.The Explainability Problem 53.Humanizing AI 54.AI and Robots Hacking Us 55.Computers and AI Are Accelerating Societal Hacking 56.When AIs Become Hackers 57.Reward Hacking 58.Defending against AI Hackers 59.A Future of AI Hackers 60.Governance Systems for Hacking Concluding Thoughts Acknowledgments Notes Index