Any publicity is good publicity
Security god Bruce Schneier, who I used to cite as a tech journalist, cited me last month. Not for anything tech related, but because of my rape safety tips for college women. You see, I'm one of those folks who recommends that women in certain circumstances be careful about where their drinks are coming from and who's handled them:The Real Facts About College Rape
I know Schneier was talking about one idea in general, and not my article or me in particular, but humor me and allow me to personally respond anyway.
Schneier says (in part):
"GHB is gamma hydroxybutyric acid; a date rape drug. An attacker (presumably male) slips the drug into a woman's drink, and then rapes her after the effects of the drug set in. Not a common attack -- there are fewer than 40 reported cases in the U.S. each year -- but horrible when it happens. (To be fair, this number is widely believed to be an underestimate, but it seems clear that it's a small fraction of all rapes.)
[To be even more fair, it's a fraction of my writing about date rape prevention, too.I put much more stock in basic self-defense.]
"One suggested countermeasure is that women carry their own bottle opener into a bar, and make sure that no one else handles their opened drink. The general principle illustrated here is that of a trusted third party. If a woman opens the beer bottle herself, then she is not forced to trust anyone in the bar.
[While a scumbag can dose a drink in a crowded bar, it's harder than at a house party, and I never said "bar." Since the focus of my article was rape at college, I'm not so much talking bars -- though I suppose plenty of college students get fake IDs and go to them -- as campus parties.]
As with the threat of drugs or razors in Halloween candy (which, unlike GHB, is almost completely phony), risk assessment is often based on scariness rather than prevalence. That is, people are having an emotional reaction to the threat rather than a realistic one. And they end up with a countermeasure that makes no sense from a security analysis perspective, but a lot of sense from an emotional analysis perspective. Sure, carrying a bottle opener is easy. But the constant vigilance that this countermeasure requires is not. And someone so focused on this countermeasure is more likely to ignore other threats.
Do I carry a bottle opener on my keychain? Yes, because I like beer, and I like being able to open my beer at parties without having to scrounge for the host's opener. I don't use it for security reasons, but then, the only people other than a bartender who ever hand me a drink are my husband or my friends. I'm also out of college, which was the focus of the article: American colleges have a very different culture, and require different precautions, than the world at large. "Constant vigilance" in certain environments is not necessarily excessive, and the steps I recommend are really quite simple (and free). A young woman at a frat house with people she's known for a week should be more careful than a 40-year-old woman at a bar with old friends, just like you should be more careful in unfamiliar neighborhoods with high violent crime rates than you are while walking your dog at home.
I would also argue that, unless you take your computer files *very* seriously, it's difficult to compare a tech security breach to waking up with a strange man on top of you. What's excessive in the computer security realm may seem reasonable when it's your body, not your hardware.
Furthermore, I wonder about Schier's qualifications to judge the security risks for college women at fraternity parties -- has he been to one lately? Has he ever had his drink doctored between the pour and his mouth? I have. It was speed, not roofies, but I attended a party my first year of college where all the drinks were dosed, even the nonalcoholic ones. I only had one, so no harm done other than a bit of hyperactivity, but it's embarrassing. I was very cautious that year, and it still happened. I'm only disclosing it to the universe here because apparently there's a need for firsthand evidence that dumbass college students really do put foreign substances in the drinks of dumbass freshmen, and they do it more than 40 times a year if even I ran into it.
Yes, I was very cautious as a young single woman. Perhaps overly so. But it did not affect the quality or depth of my friendships with men, my eventual college relationship, or the amount of fun (or booze) I had at parties. My caution did not affect where I went or who I got to know. When I think of my college years, I don't think of paranoia -- in fact, I didn't worry about my safety any really measurable amount, because I felt well-informed, able to avoid problems when possible, and equally capable of handling them if/when they occurred. Even in LA's more criminal neighborhoods, I *still* don't worry -- I just stay alert.
I'm sure I'm comparing apples and oranges here, but aren't we all.
(Where's the link to Scheier's original writing? Google it if you want it, or ask me to send it to you. I don't feel like linking to it and possibly starting a back-and-forth with security wonks. It's bad enough I've mentioned Scheier by name.)
Security god Bruce Schneier, who I used to cite as a tech journalist, cited me last month. Not for anything tech related, but because of my rape safety tips for college women. You see, I'm one of those folks who recommends that women in certain circumstances be careful about where their drinks are coming from and who's handled them:The Real Facts About College Rape
I know Schneier was talking about one idea in general, and not my article or me in particular, but humor me and allow me to personally respond anyway.
Schneier says (in part):
"GHB is gamma hydroxybutyric acid; a date rape drug. An attacker (presumably male) slips the drug into a woman's drink, and then rapes her after the effects of the drug set in. Not a common attack -- there are fewer than 40 reported cases in the U.S. each year -- but horrible when it happens. (To be fair, this number is widely believed to be an underestimate, but it seems clear that it's a small fraction of all rapes.)
[To be even more fair, it's a fraction of my writing about date rape prevention, too.I put much more stock in basic self-defense.]
"One suggested countermeasure is that women carry their own bottle opener into a bar, and make sure that no one else handles their opened drink. The general principle illustrated here is that of a trusted third party. If a woman opens the beer bottle herself, then she is not forced to trust anyone in the bar.
[While a scumbag can dose a drink in a crowded bar, it's harder than at a house party, and I never said "bar." Since the focus of my article was rape at college, I'm not so much talking bars -- though I suppose plenty of college students get fake IDs and go to them -- as campus parties.]
As with the threat of drugs or razors in Halloween candy (which, unlike GHB, is almost completely phony), risk assessment is often based on scariness rather than prevalence. That is, people are having an emotional reaction to the threat rather than a realistic one. And they end up with a countermeasure that makes no sense from a security analysis perspective, but a lot of sense from an emotional analysis perspective. Sure, carrying a bottle opener is easy. But the constant vigilance that this countermeasure requires is not. And someone so focused on this countermeasure is more likely to ignore other threats.
Do I carry a bottle opener on my keychain? Yes, because I like beer, and I like being able to open my beer at parties without having to scrounge for the host's opener. I don't use it for security reasons, but then, the only people other than a bartender who ever hand me a drink are my husband or my friends. I'm also out of college, which was the focus of the article: American colleges have a very different culture, and require different precautions, than the world at large. "Constant vigilance" in certain environments is not necessarily excessive, and the steps I recommend are really quite simple (and free). A young woman at a frat house with people she's known for a week should be more careful than a 40-year-old woman at a bar with old friends, just like you should be more careful in unfamiliar neighborhoods with high violent crime rates than you are while walking your dog at home.
I would also argue that, unless you take your computer files *very* seriously, it's difficult to compare a tech security breach to waking up with a strange man on top of you. What's excessive in the computer security realm may seem reasonable when it's your body, not your hardware.
Furthermore, I wonder about Schier's qualifications to judge the security risks for college women at fraternity parties -- has he been to one lately? Has he ever had his drink doctored between the pour and his mouth? I have. It was speed, not roofies, but I attended a party my first year of college where all the drinks were dosed, even the nonalcoholic ones. I only had one, so no harm done other than a bit of hyperactivity, but it's embarrassing. I was very cautious that year, and it still happened. I'm only disclosing it to the universe here because apparently there's a need for firsthand evidence that dumbass college students really do put foreign substances in the drinks of dumbass freshmen, and they do it more than 40 times a year if even I ran into it.
Yes, I was very cautious as a young single woman. Perhaps overly so. But it did not affect the quality or depth of my friendships with men, my eventual college relationship, or the amount of fun (or booze) I had at parties. My caution did not affect where I went or who I got to know. When I think of my college years, I don't think of paranoia -- in fact, I didn't worry about my safety any really measurable amount, because I felt well-informed, able to avoid problems when possible, and equally capable of handling them if/when they occurred. Even in LA's more criminal neighborhoods, I *still* don't worry -- I just stay alert.
I'm sure I'm comparing apples and oranges here, but aren't we all.
(Where's the link to Scheier's original writing? Google it if you want it, or ask me to send it to you. I don't feel like linking to it and possibly starting a back-and-forth with security wonks. It's bad enough I've mentioned Scheier by name.)
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