The internet was not originally designed with security in mind. In the early days, this was OK, but today the landscape is more complicated because, in the internet+ era, nearly everything is connected to the internet. A spreadsheet crashes, and you lose your data. A heart device crashes, and you lose your life. Both are computers, maybe connected to the same CPU or operating system. The only difference is that the computers are attached to different things.

In this episode of The Government We Need, we interview Bruce Schneier, an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist and writer. Bruce is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. His influential newsletter “Crypto-Gram” and his blog “Schneier on Security” are read by over 250,000 people. He is the author of over one dozen books — including his latest, Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World.

Government has a duty of care that private companies do not. The free market doesn’t reward safety and security, so the government must step in. The government regulates stuff that kills people, and now the internet is one of those things, so the question is what does the government need to do to effectively regulate the internet+ world and keep us safe?