If someone is living in fear--whether it's fear of the burglar on your block or the fanatical dictator half a planet away--it's because she doesn't understand how the game of security is played. She longs for a fortress, for a fairy-tale solution that will work forever after. It's a perfectly reasonable longing, and its because she thinks about security in terms of absolutes or magnifies her level of risk based on her experiences with the media, both news and fiction. There's a smart way to be scared. It involves moving beyond fear and thinking sensibly about trade-offs. It involves looking beyond the newspaper headlines and getting a feel for the numbers: a feel for the threats and risks, and the efficacy of the countermeasures. It involves making sensible security trade-offs. The smart way to be scared is to be streetwise.
