Slashdot Mirror
Blown to Bits
Ray Lodato writes "Few people would deny that the world has changed significantly since the explosion of the Internet. Our access to immense volumes of data has made our lives both easier and less secure. Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis have written an intriguing analysis of many of the issues that have erupted due to the ubiquity of digital data, not only on the Internet but elsewhere. Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion, published by Addison-Wesley, digs into many of the ramifications of making so much information available to the world at large. As I read through the book, I was alternately fascinated and horrified at what information is available, and how it is being used and abused." Keep reading for the rest of Ray's review.
Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion
author
Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, Harry Lewis
pages
384
publisher
Addison-Wesley Professional
rating
9/10
reviewer
Ray Lodato
ISBN
0137135599
summary
An intriguing analysis of how computers and the internet have fundamentally changed our personal lives.
While the subject matter is primarily about a technology that many people may still not comprehend, the book is written at a level permitting most people to understand how it affects them. There is sufficient tutorial information on how the Internet functions to allow all to follow the reasoning. For those more web-savvy, there are many references to web sites illustrating the authors’ points. The reader is encouraged to check them out as you go. While there is a natural flow from one chapter to the next, each one is sufficiently encapsulated so that you can read chapters in any order you like.
The first chapter of Blown to Bits sets the tone of the book by providing examples of how the new technology is both a boon and a menace. As an example of the former, Tanya Rider, who was trapped in her car after an horrific crash, was rescued days later by using the technology behind her cell phone to pinpoint the location of the cellular tower it was “pinging”. In contrast, 13-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide after “Josh” (a fabricated personality) tormented her on MySpace. In each case, the law had a significant role to play. For Tanya, her right to privacy delayed the acquisition of her cell phone location records. In Megan’s case, no law was found to prevent someone from fabricating a MySpace “friend” and saying what they wanted. As the book continues, the clash between the current set of laws and the new capabilities in the digital world is continually spotlighted.
Two chapters are devoted to the vast amounts of data collected on our personal habits, and how the processing power of computers is making it easier for us to extract information that used to be difficult to determine. Most of the information gathered by various companies is permitted by us in the name of convenience. How many of us have signed up for store rewards cards, just to save a few buck here or there? The authors detail how those companies track our purchasing profiles for their own benefit, and sometimes share that information with others. In most cases, they point out that the use in innocuous enough, but the potential exists for damage to us in the form of invading our private lives. In the past, collecting this vast amount of data would require a large investment in people and processing power to extract useful information. The chapter “Needles in the Haystack” shows how the new computers we can purchase today make that power available to anyone with the desire to know. It is made very clear that this data mining is available to anyone with an Internet connection and the desire to explore.
Two other chapters dig into how information can be hidden in files, both deliberately and unknowingly. For example, the metadata that describes a document is stored along with the actual content, and that metadata may not be something you want shared. Another example is how sensitive information in an official document was supposedly redacted (censored with a black bar) yet, unknown to the document owner, the underlying document contained the entire text which was easily retrieved. Data encryption by the general public is a subject of great concern to governments around the world. The chapter on data encryption explains how the FBI attempted to hamper independent efforts to create a strong public encryption algorithm in the name of national defense. Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis weigh the pros and cons of unbreakable encryption in the hands of the general public with the need of the government to insure terrorist plots cannot be hidden from the Defense Department. This chapter ends with a discussion of how anyone using a browser to purchase goods on the internet uses encryption, and how that’s principally the only use of encryption by the average user.
The final three chapters explore the legal ramifications of the digital age, and how the judicial system has lagged behind. Many news stories have described the fight for ownership of media, especially in the case of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) suing many individuals for allegedly sharing songs. Blown to Bits goes into depth describing the issues on both sides of this case. RIAA’s filing of over 26,000 lawsuits in five years is given as a chilling example of how a large organization can abuse the legal system that has not yet adjusted to the new realities of the ease of copying original works. The concerns surrounding free speech on the Internet include the availability of pornography and inflammatory messages. How do you rationalize protecting those who do not wish to be subjected to certain text or images against the rights of those who wish to make them available? No clear answers are provided, but many facets of the discussion are revealed.
Blown to Bits is a fascinating read which will get you thinking about how technology is changing our lives, for better and for worse. Each chapter will alternatively interest you and leave you appalled (and perhaps a little frightened). You will be given the insight to protect yourself a little better, and it provides background for intelligent discussions about the legalities that impact our use of technology.
You can purchase Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The first chapter of Blown to Bits sets the tone of the book by providing examples of how the new technology is both a boon and a menace. As an example of the former, Tanya Rider, who was trapped in her car after an horrific crash, was rescued days later by using the technology behind her cell phone to pinpoint the location of the cellular tower it was “pinging”. In contrast, 13-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide after “Josh” (a fabricated personality) tormented her on MySpace. In each case, the law had a significant role to play. For Tanya, her right to privacy delayed the acquisition of her cell phone location records. In Megan’s case, no law was found to prevent someone from fabricating a MySpace “friend” and saying what they wanted. As the book continues, the clash between the current set of laws and the new capabilities in the digital world is continually spotlighted.
Two chapters are devoted to the vast amounts of data collected on our personal habits, and how the processing power of computers is making it easier for us to extract information that used to be difficult to determine. Most of the information gathered by various companies is permitted by us in the name of convenience. How many of us have signed up for store rewards cards, just to save a few buck here or there? The authors detail how those companies track our purchasing profiles for their own benefit, and sometimes share that information with others. In most cases, they point out that the use in innocuous enough, but the potential exists for damage to us in the form of invading our private lives. In the past, collecting this vast amount of data would require a large investment in people and processing power to extract useful information. The chapter “Needles in the Haystack” shows how the new computers we can purchase today make that power available to anyone with the desire to know. It is made very clear that this data mining is available to anyone with an Internet connection and the desire to explore.
Two other chapters dig into how information can be hidden in files, both deliberately and unknowingly. For example, the metadata that describes a document is stored along with the actual content, and that metadata may not be something you want shared. Another example is how sensitive information in an official document was supposedly redacted (censored with a black bar) yet, unknown to the document owner, the underlying document contained the entire text which was easily retrieved. Data encryption by the general public is a subject of great concern to governments around the world. The chapter on data encryption explains how the FBI attempted to hamper independent efforts to create a strong public encryption algorithm in the name of national defense. Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis weigh the pros and cons of unbreakable encryption in the hands of the general public with the need of the government to insure terrorist plots cannot be hidden from the Defense Department. This chapter ends with a discussion of how anyone using a browser to purchase goods on the internet uses encryption, and how that’s principally the only use of encryption by the average user.
The final three chapters explore the legal ramifications of the digital age, and how the judicial system has lagged behind. Many news stories have described the fight for ownership of media, especially in the case of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) suing many individuals for allegedly sharing songs. Blown to Bits goes into depth describing the issues on both sides of this case. RIAA’s filing of over 26,000 lawsuits in five years is given as a chilling example of how a large organization can abuse the legal system that has not yet adjusted to the new realities of the ease of copying original works. The concerns surrounding free speech on the Internet include the availability of pornography and inflammatory messages. How do you rationalize protecting those who do not wish to be subjected to certain text or images against the rights of those who wish to make them available? No clear answers are provided, but many facets of the discussion are revealed.
Blown to Bits is a fascinating read which will get you thinking about how technology is changing our lives, for better and for worse. Each chapter will alternatively interest you and leave you appalled (and perhaps a little frightened). You will be given the insight to protect yourself a little better, and it provides background for intelligent discussions about the legalities that impact our use of technology.
You can purchase Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Who else was thinking of exploding batteries in ATT neighborhood boxes? Be honest.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Not to be a paranoid freak, but the subject of the parent comment made me think of Asimov's Foundation Series, in particular the concept of psychohistory.
Campaigns, marketing and political, could be guided by statistical analysis of trends, frequency of ideas being introduced, etc... When this data is coupled with demographics it would be a very powerful tool.
Applications of this would be the guerrilla advertising methods that I first heard described in "Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson. Key people could introduce key ideas or augment existing ones in certain enclaves of people that in the past have initiated trends. Much like Locke and Voltaire in Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game".
The truth is that is almost impossible to do this. Most people voices on the internet are muted by the shear volume of voices out there. Also, most people are not using the internet to engage in serious intellectual activity.
By serious intellectual activity I mean challenging and expanding one's own ideas. I really detest a majority of the media, Fox News, provides a particular easy example of people wanting to hear what they already believe. It provides affirmation that they are smart because people on the tv are saying what they believe. I am sure it occasionally offers extended nuances to their own belief system but rarely challenges it.
I took am guilty of this to a certain extent, but I recognize it as a weakness and try to address it. Between the Bush/Gore election and 9/11 I swore off network news. Now I read "The Economist" because it has non-US centric view of the world and listen to NPR on my way to work. It helps. But I must admit that I do not read books are articles defending "intelligent" design, when I am convinced of evolution. Maybe people believe their ideology so thoroughly that they choose not to challenge it...
Damn, sorry for going off into the weeds and getting a little off topic.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
You just want to silence the conservative blogging world by forcing us to do "fact checking" so we won't be able to say anything that's too controversial and might conflict with your precious "reality."
Stupid liberals are all in a tizzy when we don't let the mainstream media get away with turning the Superbowl into a hardcore fuckfest in front of millions of innocent children, but then they want us to fact check everything we say. No hypocrisy there, nope.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel