The Hundredth Window: Protecting Your Privacy and Security in the Age of the Internet - Hardcover

Jennings, Charles; Fena, Lori

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 068483944X ISBN 13: 9780684839448

Publisher: Free Press, 2000

Synopsis

As Web technology endangers aspects of our privacy, how can we best maintain computer security? Jennings and Fena provide a comprehensive guide to privacy and security in the fast-changing Internet age, identifying winning and losing strategies for users and businesses.

About this title

Review

If you use a computer and you surf the Web, the Internet's open architecture has made you visible to the world. So claims The Hundredth Window, Charles Jennings and Lori Fena's exposé on Internet security--or the lack thereof. Regardless of how you feel about privacy, though, this book can help you understand the risks of Internet use, plus some precautions you can take to minimise them.

The proverbial hundredth window represents the most vulnerable link in a system. It derives from an allegory relating windows in a castle to security--if only one out of a hundred windows is left open, security becomes compromised. Since the Internet maximises information sharing, admittedly largely a beneficial enterprise, would-be avid marketers and the inevitable shadier characters can, without trying all that hard, spy on your Web clicking habits, read your e-mail, and even see files on your hard drive. This means you may receive spam from marketers who think they know what kind of stuff you like to buy--helpful to some and aggravating to others. It also means, ominously, that your name and other identifying information about you can cause you problems. Individuals can even use personal information about you to commit fraud or other crimes, for which you would then be responsible.

Now, it's unlikely you'd undergo the sort of nightmare invasion on your privacy that occurred in Enemy of the State, but the exchange of personal information about Internet users is undeniably a multibillion dollar business. It's the increasingly fervent desire of marketing executives the world over to know intimate details about you so that they can help you shop. Maybe this is no skin off your nose, but you may become frustrated if you happen to have a parent or grandparent with a serious illness, for example, you spend time researching the illness on the Web, and your name falls into the hands of insurers as a potential high risk. There are incalculable extrapolations on this scenario that you may want to protect yourself from, and this book can get you started on that road.

Jennings and Fena, both experts on this topic, have compiled a series of easy steps to help you minimise your visibility in cyberspace. Their approach isn't terribly sophisticated--they suggest you clear out your cookies and use fake information when registering on Web sites, for example--but it's effective. They also offer several quite handy techniques that erase your Web footprints, such as leaving your AOL member profile blank and using blocking software.

The topic of Internet security can sometimes get relegated to the land of the paranoid, but in this case the advice is sensible and the solutions practical. --Teri Kieffer, Amazon.com

Review

N.J. Nicholas, Jr. former chief executive officer, Time Warner Charles Jennings and Lori Fena call for a new kind of integrity in our new information economy -- integrity in the use of personal data. They show how vulnerable we all are in this age of the Internet and why it is essential that businesses develop new and higher standards of privacy protection. Every business leader should read this book.

Esther DysonFrom the Foreword"ÝThe Hundredth Window¨" lays out, eloquently and in detail, the range of issues that comprise personal privacy in the age of the Internet. It is clear that the concept of privacy, the threats to it, and the means to achieve it are all changing as a result of our new computer-based lives. The world will never be a perfect place, but with the kinds of warnings and solutions that Charles Jennings and Lori Fena describe, we will be able at least to move it in the right direction.

N.J. Nicholas, Jr.former chief executive officer, Time WarnerCharles Jennings and Lori Fena call for a new kind of integrity in our new information economy -- integrity in the use of personal data. They show how vulnerable we all are in this age of the Internet and why it is essential that businesses develop new and higher standards of privacy protection. Every business leader should read this book.

Esther DysonFrom the Foreword"[The Hundredth Window]" lays out, eloquently and in detail, the range of issues that comprise personal privacy in the age of the Internet. It is clear that the concept of privacy, the threats to it, and the means to achieve it are all changing as a result of our new computer-based lives. The world will never be a perfect place, but with the kinds of warnings and solutions that Charles Jennings and Lori Fena describe, we will be able at least to move it in the right direction.

Francis Fukuyamaauthor of" The Great Disruption" and" Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity""The Hundredth Window" will make you sit up and realize that the Internet, like all highways, can convey bad things as well as good, and that your privacy and security may well be in jeopardy as you browse. Charles Jennings and Lori Fena show that trust in cyberspace is ultimately a matter of people, not technology, and they give readers loads of practical advice on how to use the Internet safely.

Esther Dyson From the Foreword "[The Hundredth Window]" lays out, eloquently and in detail, the range of issues that comprise personal privacy in the age of the Internet. It is clear that the concept of privacy, the threats to it, and the means to achieve it are all changing as a result of our new computer-based lives. The world will never be a perfect place, but with the kinds of warnings and solutions that Charles Jennings and Lori Fena describe, we will be able at least to move it in the right direction.

Francis Fukuyama author of " The Great Disruption" and " Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity""The Hundredth Window" will make you sit up and realize that the Internet, like all highways, can convey bad things as well as good, and that your privacy and security may well be in jeopardy as you browse. Charles Jennings and Lori Fena show that trust in cyberspace is ultimately a matter of people, not technology, and they give readers loads of practical advice on how to use the Internet safely.

Topher Neumann chairman, Center for Trust Online, Ernst & Young, LLP The Chinese have a saying: "The sky is high and the emperor is far away." This is not true on the Internet. "The Hundredth Window" challenges us to consider how close the emperor is to our every move and how powerful are compounding data overlays of our lives. Charles Jennings and Lori Fena give us the tools to think critically about the new challenges of living in the connected age.

Christine A. Varney, partner, Hogan & Hartson, LLP; former commissioner, Federal Trade Commission Charles Jennings and Lori Fena have provided the first roadmap to navigating the digital age without unknowingly compromising your privacy. They help us understand the trade-offs between privacy and personalization, and how to make choices that work. In what is likely to be the most important work you'll read on privacy on the Net, you'll be frightened, excited and empowered, and you'll never surf the same again.

Edition details

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 068483944X
• ISBN 13: 9780684839448
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352