#BHUSA: Schneier Advocates For Public Interest Technologists

In his talk at Black Hat 2019 in Las Vegas, Bruce Schneier emphasized the importance of tech experts being involved in setting public policy though the role of public interest technologist.

“No policy makers understand technology,” declared Schneier. “Technologists are in one world, and policy makers are in a different world. It’s no longer acceptable for them to be in separate worlds though as technology and policy are deeply intertwined.”

But technologists and policy makers don’t understand each other, said Schneier. “They speak different languages, they make different assumptions and they approach problem solving differently.

“Policy security has been pushed to the side. [There is] no regard for what has been built and the effect it will have.

“As internet security becomes everything security, the technology we make becomes important to overall policy. We can’t get policy right if policy makers get the technology wrong.”

To fix this, suggested Schneier, policy makers need to understand technology. “It seems impossible but it’s vital.” All policy decisions need to be made with technology in mind, he said, and policy makers need technologists on their staff. “All the major policy debates of this century will have strong cybersecurity influences,” he predicted.

To get more technologists involved in policy, Schneier suggested the answer is to get “more public interest technologists,” though he did admit that it’s still a developing term. “A lot of people doing it came out of the Obama White House," he said.

“In the last century, the people doing public policies needed to be economists. Today, people doing public pol ..

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