The term Schneier's Law was coined by Cory Doctorow in his speech about Digital Rights Management for Microsoft Research,[1] which is included in his 2008 book Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future. The law is phrased as:
| “ | Any person can invent a security system so clever that he or she can't imagine a way of breaking it. | ” |
He attributes this to Bruce Schneier, presumably making reference to his book Applied Cryptography, although the principle predates its publication. In The Codebreakers, David Kahn states:
| “ | Few false ideas have more firmly gripped the minds of so many intelligent men than the one that, if they just tried, they could invent a cipher that no one could break. | ” |