Schnier is at his finest when he describes the extent and exploits of the U.S. Government surveillance, and I think the first few chapters of this book are probably the best summary of the landscape of digital snooping. He pins a national internet blackout in Syria on U.S. actions, and quotes the NSA director as saying “we kill people based on metadata.” Scary, right?
When Schnier starts to talk about topics that I know a little more about, he seems out of his depth. In the corporate world, he conflates having the technical ability to do something with actually doing it, and draws some incredibly erroneous conclusions as a result (-1 star). The way he talked about politics and counter-terrorism struck me as naive. (-1 star).
The result is a book that I wanted to like, learned a little bit from, but found lacking in nearly all of its recommendations.