Cryptography and computer security guru Bruce Schneier is working on a new book:

My new book, still untitled, is a book about security. Not computer security, but security in general. Its goal is to teach readers how to think differently, how to tell good security from bad security, and to be able to explain why. Its goal is to instill in readers a healthy skepticism about security, especially the technologies surrounding security. Its goal is to convince readers that good security is about people.

Schneier's first book, Applied Cryptography, focuses very narrowly on the technology of encryption, and gives the subject as thorough a treatment as has ever been done. He later came to question the usefulness of his own work, though, for its lack of context:

Readers believed that cryptography was a kind of magic security dust that they could sprinkle over their software and make it secure. That they could invoke magic spells like "128-bit key" and "public-key infrastructure." A colleague once told me that the world was full of bad security systems designed by people who read Applied Cryptography.

And so Schneier wrote Secrets and Lies, a more general look at computer security. (The passage above is taken from the introduction to that book.) Now, he takes another step back for a still broader view, looking at security in general, informed by the events of 9/11, and the attempts -- most running the range from ineffectual to counterproductive -- to respond to the need for greater security.

No doubt Scheier's thoughts on the subject will be worth reading, but don't get too excited just yet:

Book publishing is second only to furniture delivery in slowness. My deadline for the book is the end of the month, but it's not going to be available in stores until next September.

Ten months? That's about a decade in blog-years.