Raymond Wacks: Privacy: A Very Short Introduction (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · biometrics, cctv, facebook, law, privacy, rfid, surveillance
It is widely recognized that our privacy is under threat. Electronic surveillance, biometrics, CCTV, ID cards, RFID codes, online security, encryption, the interception of email, the monitoring of employees–all raise fundamental questions about privacy. Legal expert Raymond Wacks here provides a compact introduction to this complex and controversial concept. He explores the tension between free speech and privacy which is often tested by paparazzi, with their intrusive journalism and sensational disclosures of the private lives of celebrities. He also looks at laws in many nations that regulate the collection and use of personal information, whether highly sensitive–medical and financial information–or commonplace transactions and details about us. The protection of personal data represents a classic instance of the law’s struggle to keep abreast with technology, as the nullinformation revolutionnull has spawned problems that test the ability of the law to provide adequate protection against abuse. The book concludes that, while under attack from many quarters, privacy remains an essential human right, recognized as such by many international organizations.
* Examines why we need privacy and value it so much, and what constitutes an invasion of privacy
* Considers the issues of privacy and security, privacy and the paparazzi, and the protection of personal data
* Discusses the importance of privacy in debates about law and ethics
* Puts privacy in its wider social context by giving examples of its sociological and psychological impact
* Ray Wacks is an expert on the legal protection of privacy and how this protection varies in different countries
* Part of the bestselling Very Short Introductions series – over three million copies sold worldwide
Publisher Oxford University Press, 2010
Series: Very Short Introductions
ISBN 0199556539, 9780199556533
Length 160 pages
John Palfrey, Urs Gasser: Born Digital. Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (2008)
Filed under book | Tags: · digital natives, filesharing, internet, privacy, sociology, technology, youth
The first generation of “Digital Natives”—children who were born into and raised in the digital world—are coming of age, and soon our world will be reshaped in their image. Our economy, our politics, our culture, and even the shape of our family life will be forever transformed. But who are these Digital Natives? And what is the world they’re creating going to look like? In Born Digital, leading Internet and technology experts John Palfrey and Urs Gasser offer a sociological portrait of these young people, who can seem, even to those merely a generation older, both extraordinarily sophisticated and strangely narrow. Exploring a broad range of issues, from the highly philosophical to the purely practical, Born Digital will be essential reading for parents, teachers, and the myriad of confused adults who want to understand the digital present—and shape the digital future.
Publisher Basic Books, 2008
ISBN 0465005152, 9780465005154
375 pages
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Comments (2)Steven Levy: Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government. Saving Privacy in the Digital Age (2002)
Filed under book | Tags: · hacker culture, hacking, politics, privacy, security
Crypto is about privacy in the information age and about the nerds and visionaries who, nearly twenty years ago, predicted that the Internet’s greatest virtue–free access to information–was also its most perilous drawback: a possible end to privacy. Levy explores what turned out to be a decisive development in the crypto wars: the unlikely alliance between the computer geeks and big business as they fought the government’s stranglehold on the keys to information in a networked world. The players come alive here in a narrative that reads like the best of futuristic spy fiction. There is Whit Diffie, the long-haired Newton of crypto who invented the astounding “public key” solution; David Chaum, whose “anonymous digital money” actually threatened the global financial infrastructure; and “cypherpunks” like Phil Zimmermann, who freely distributed military-strength codes under the nose of the U. S. government. There is also the first behind-the-scenes account of what the secretive National Security Agency really had in mind when it created the controversial “clipper chip”–and how the Clinton administration bungled the operation. Sure to appeal to everyone who kept David Kahn’s sweeping The Codebreakers in print for more than thirty years and readers who are making Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mark’s Between Silk and Cyanide, and Singh’s The Code Book bestsellers, Crypto will soon be the new classic of its subject. Crypto is a bestselling book and winner in the category of best Non-Fiction eBooks for the International eBook Award Foundation 2001 eBook awards ceremony in Frankfurt, Germany.
Publisher Penguin, 2002
Series: Penguin Press Science Series
ISBN 0140244328, 9780140244328
Length 356 pages