Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World - Hardcover

Bruce Schneier

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393244814 ISBN 13: 9780393244816

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015

Synopsis

Data is everywhere. We create it every time we go online, turn our phone on (or off!), or pay with a credit card. This data is stored, studied, and bought and sold by corporations and governments for surveillance and for control. Foremost security expert (Wired) and best-selling author Bruce Schneier shows how this data has led to a double-edged Internet a Web that gives power to the people but is abused by the institutions on which those people depend. In Data and Goliath, Schneier reveals the full extent of surveillance, censorship, and propaganda in society today, examining the risks of cybercrime, cyberterrorism, and cyberwar. He shares technological, legal, and social solutions that can help shape a more equal, private, and secure world. This is a book everyone with an Internet connection or bank account, or smart device, or car, for that matter needs to read."

About this title

About the Author

Bruce Schneier is "one of the world's foremost security experts" (Wired) and the best-selling author of thirteen books. He speaks and writes regularly for major media venues, and his newsletter and blog reach more than 250,000 people worldwide. He is a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and the CTO of Co3 Systems, Inc.

From the Back Cover

You are under surveillance right now.

Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who's with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you're unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you're thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it.

The powers that surveil us do more than simply store this information. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we're offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cybercriminals in huge data breaches.

Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we've gained? In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He shows us exactly what we can do to reform our government surveillance programs and shake up surveillance-based business models, while also providing tips for you to protect your privacy every day. You'll never look at your phone, your computer, your credit cards, or even your car in the same way again.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0393244814
• ISBN 13: 9780393244816
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400