{"id":12993,"date":"2026-05-20T05:04:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T05:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/laurie-anderson-is-quoting-me-html\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T05:04:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T05:04:19","slug":"laurie-anderson-is-quoting-me-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/laurie-anderson-is-quoting-me-html\/","title":{"rendered":"Laurie Anderson Is Quoting Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div>Laurie Anderson Is Quoting Me<\/div>\n<p> \t<BR><br \/>\n<BR><\/BR><br \/>\n    <!-- no image --><br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n<BR><\/BR><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Not by name, but Laurie Anderson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fBKdCzmcj_0\">quotes me<\/a> in one of the tracks of her new album:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>My favorite quote is from a cryptologist who said \u201cIf you think technology will solve your problems, you don\u2019t understand technology and you don\u2019t understand your problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Also in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/arts\/q\/laurie-anderson-on-the-fantastic-and-catastrophic-uses-of-ai-in-art-1.7206120\">interviews<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cOf course, it\u2019s ridiculous, outrageous, blah, blah, blah,\u201d Anderson says about the ad. \u2018But, I mean, my favorite quote on this is from a cryptologist who said, \u2018If you think technology will solve your problems, you don\u2019t understand technology \u00c2\u00ad and you don\u2019t understand your problems.\u2019 And I think I\u2019m completely on board with that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>People are telling me that she has been reciting this quote in performances for years. (I lost track of her since college and her 1981 hit \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Vkfpi2H8tOE\">O Superman<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>The origins of the quote is from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DON4jlfjJIT\/\">Roger Needham<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>If you think cryptography can solve your problem, you don\u2019t understand your problem and you don\u2019t understand cryptography.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I modified the quote in the preface to my 2000 book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.schneier.com\/books\/secrets-and-lies\/\"><i>Secrets and Lies<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A few years ago I heard a quotation, and I am going to modify it here: If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don\u2019t understand the problems and you don\u2019t understand the technology.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I can\u2019t tell you why me in 2000 didn\u2019t credit Needham by name. I should have.<\/p>\n<p>I have used the quote pretty consistently since then. Somewhere along the line I dropped \u201csecurity\u201d from the phrase, and now say it more like Anderson quotes me:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>If you think technology will solve your problem, you don\u2019t understand your problem and you don\u2019t understand technology.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I sometimes use singular and sometimes use plural. Sometimes I say \u201cthe problem\u201d and \u201cthe technology.\u201d But I think the quote flows better ending with just the word \u201ctechnology.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> \t<BR><br \/>\n <BR><\/BR><br \/>\n    Bruce Schneier<br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n<BR><\/BR><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.schneier.com\/blog\/archives\/2026\/05\/laurie-anderson-is-quoting-me.html\">Go to bruce schneier<\/a><br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n <BR><\/BR><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laurie Anderson Is Quoting Me Not by name, but Laurie Anderson quotes me in one of the tracks of her new album: My favorite quote is from a cryptologist who said \u201cIf you think technology will solve your problems, you don\u2019t understand technology and you don\u2019t understand your problems.\u201d Also in interviews: \u201cOf course, it\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,1081,555,1],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-12993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bruce-schneier","category-music","category-schneier-news","category-uncategorized","tag-bruce-schneier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}