Customer Reviews

Protect Your Digital Privacy! Survival Skills for the Information Age

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I am 75, and have hesitated to buy books about the Internet, because I am not very technical and just use the Web to read email and research topics about geneology. But a friend loaned it to me, and I was amazed to find that it is written in a clear and friendly way, and that the technical details (including how to protect my home computer) were very easy to follow. The authors are interesting people who share a lot of their lives to help us understand privacy issues. In addition, I lent the book to my daughter-in-law, who discovered using the checklist in the book that someone had stolen her identity, and is using resources it recommends to fix it. You should read this book

what was happening with the personal information I gave my local grocery store when I signed up for their shopping card. And that, folks, is just the tip of the iceburg. This is a fascinating book that has great technical information but is still easy for the average computer user to read. Read it to find out what has changed in our lives since September 11, and how you can make informed decisions regarding your personal privacy. If you don't read it for yourself, read it to protect your children. (Chapter 4) You'll be glad you did.

There are many books, and WWW sites, that would be useful. But an excellent overview is Cady and McGregor's work, Protect Your Digital Privacy. While there are many more recent books, this one has stood the test of time, and remains an encyclopedic introduction to a variety of threats. Too, it treats privacy not only as something to be defended, but something to which we all have an actual right. The book discusses threats coming from legislative and commercial actors as well as from illegal intrusions... At 600+ pages in length, this work is a bit intimidating, and its wide coverage inevitably means that large parts of it will not be of interest to any one reader, at the present time, at least. But having had the work around for some months now, I find myself consulting it frequently, and think it a valuable work for any regular Internet user's library...

For a full review see Interface, Volume 3, Issue 6.