Bruce Schneier is Insulted. Yes, we did it.
Maybe you saw our rather lengthy reply to Bruce Schneier’s strange “essay”, as he calls them, on the recent initiative from Rand Paul, taking on the TSA and its many flaws. In short, Rand Paul wants to shorten the TSA’s reins, and promote the use of private security companies to deal with airport checkpoint security.
We pointed out a fair number of mystifying things in Bruce’s essay, including his apparent lack of understanding when it comes to market forces, and the basics of airport security, specifically who is the real customer, and how that whole thing works with airlines, airports, security companies and the government. And the passengers, of course… let’s not forget those. For someone who has a whole lot of opinions and musings (“essays“) on the TSA, airport security and security in general, Bruce has a surprisingly feeble grasp on the real workings of the concept.
Anyway.
He noticed us, apparently – the latest issue of his newsletter actually lists our own “essay” as a response to his – which it was, of course – but our rebuttal is apparently “too insulting” to reply to.
Bruce… we would like to introduce you to the internet. Just because we weren’t invited to one of your “security conferences”, or one of your private public debates (yes… doesn’t make much sense, does it?), that doesn’t mean everything written that counters with your own opinions is “insulting”. We would love to have a debate with you, but judging from the participants in your previous “debates”, it seems you’re quite averse to debating against someone who actually disagrees with you. It’s a little sad. Oh, and just to give you an idea of someone who really insults his online adversaries, why don’t you take a look at Popehat – one of our most favoritest peoples on the internetz. That dude’s a lawyer… but don’t hold it against him.
Anyway, we’d like to encourage everyone to take a look at Bruce’s essay – it’s here – and our “too insulting” reply to it. They’re both worth a read. Oh, and leave us a comment, if you’d like to chime in on something. We like comments. That goes for you too, Bruce! We’d love to hear from you.
Image by Flickr user sflaw
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Of course you’re free to write whatever you want on the internet. Bruce is also free to refuse to respond and say why.
In your orignail post you came across sounding like an asshole. You know it, I know it, he knows it and so does anyone else that read the post.
Absolutely! It’s the beauty of the internet (as well as the pain of it, at times… 😉 )
While we didn’t really mean to come across as assholes, it’s the sum of our experience in reading Schneier’s works that shines through, I suppose…