People don't understand computers. Computers are magical boxes that do things. People believe what computers tell them.

Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy our country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage.

Why is it that we all - myself included - believe these stories? Why are we so quick to assume that the TSA is a bunch of jack-booted thugs, officious and arbitrary and drunk with power? It's because everything seems so arbitrary, because there's no accountability or transparency in the DHS.

It is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws; we need to protect ourselves with mathematics.

The very definition of news is something that hardly ever happens. If an incident is in the news, we shouldn't worry about it. It's when something is so common that its no longer news - car crashes, domestic violence - that we should worry.

Societies without a reservoir of people who don't follow the rules lack an important mechanism for societal evolution. Vibrant societies need a dishonest minority; if society makes its dishonest minority too small, it stifles dissent as well as common crime.

If someone steals your password, you can change it. But if someone steals your thumbprint, you can't get a new thumb. The failure modes are very different.