The key ideas

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

Bruce Schneier, 2023

A corporation with billions in profit pays almost zero tax, and it's all perfectly legal. Security expert Bruce Schneier explains that taxes, laws, markets and even our own brains are systems with holes in them, just like software. You'll see why the powerful are the best at finding those holes, and what changes when artificial intelligence starts hunting for loopholes.

Who it is for

For anyone who wants to understand why the rich and powerful so often win “by the rules”, and how that actually works, from taxes to the feed on your phone.

A hack follows the letter of the rules but betrays their spirit, and the winner is whoever has the power to make their hack the norm.

What the book is about

You pay every cent of your taxes, while a huge corporation with billions in profit pays almost nothing. And it's all legal. How? Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert, gives a surprising answer: its lawyers found a hole in the law — exactly the way a hacker finds a hole in a program.

This book is about how any of society's rules, from taxes to elections to your own attention, can be “hacked.” You'll learn how a hack works, why the powerful are the best at it, and what the rest of us can do about it. You've picked up a book that makes you think instead of just entertaining you, and that already says a lot about you.

Idea 1. Hacking isn't just about computers

What does a hacker who breaks into banking software have in common with an accountant who saves a company millions in taxes? Schneier is sure: they're doing the same thing.

Here's how he defines a hack. It's a clever move that uses a system in a way its creators never intended. A hack follows the letter of the rules but breaks their spirit. And the hacker profits at someone else's expense.

Computers aren't required at all. A system is any set of rules: a game, a law, a market, even our brain. Every system has vulnerabilities, because rules are written by people, and people can't foresee everything. One important detail: a hack lives inside the system, like a parasite. It doesn't break the system from the outside — it feeds on it from within.

The big mistake is thinking hacking is always illegal. Most of the hacks in this book are completely legal. That's exactly why they're so hard to stop.

What this means for you: when someone wins “by the rules” but the result feels unfair, it's worth asking whether it's a hack.

A kids' board game says: “a player may take one card per turn.” A sneaky little brother takes one card, then announces that his turn isn't over yet. Technically, no rule was broken. But everyone at the table knows the game just got hacked.

A hack is winning by the letter of the rules against their spirit.

Read in Livria

About the author

Bruce Schneier is one of the world's best-known experts in computer security and cryptography, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the author of “Applied Cryptography.”

All books by this author: Bruce Schneier

Terms from the book

  • Hack: A clever move that uses a system in a way its creators never intended: following the letter of the rules, but against their spirit and at someone else's expense.
  • Vulnerabilities: Weak spots in a set of rules that let you get around them. They exist because the people who write the rules can't foresee everything.
  • Loopholes: Gaps in a law or a set of rules that let you gain an advantage without formally breaking anything.
  • Patch: A word from the software world: to fix a bug. In the book, it means changing a rule so the hole someone found is closed.
  • Lobbyists: People who professionally push the interests of a company or an industry with those who make the laws.
  • Cognitive hack: Exploiting the weak spots in how we think — like fear or trust in “our own people” — to steer our decisions.

All terms

Similar books