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When a tax payment from the Ross family
was lost in the mail, the IRS categorized them as deadbeats;
the misinformation spread like a virus through the nation's
databanks, and the Rosses soon fell into a black hole of
credit troubles.
When Robert Rivera filed suit against
a supermarket where he slipped and fell, the store used
his frequent-buyer records to claim that liquor purchases
led to his accident.
And today, candidates for public office
must assume that opponents and journalists may obtain their
personal records from hospitals, insurance companies, and
other seemingly private databases.
As the 21st century dawns, advances in technology
endanger our privacy in ways never before imagined. Direct
marketers and retailers track our every purchase; surveillance
cameras observe our movements; mobile phones will soon report
our location to those who want to track us; government eavesdroppers
listen in on private communications; misused medical records
turn our bodies and our histories against us; and linked
databases assemble detailed consumer profiles used to predict
and influence our behavior. Privacy -- the most basic of
our civil rights -- is in grave peril.
Simson Garfinkel -- journalist, entrepreneur,
and international authority on computer security -- has
spent his career testing new technologies and warning about
their implications. Database Nation is his compelling
account of how invasive technologies will affect our lives
in the coming years. It's a timely, far-reaching, entertaining,
and thought-provoking look at the serious threats to privacy
facing us today. The book poses a disturbing question: how
can we protect our basic rights to privacy, identity, and
autonomy when technology is making invasion and control
easier than ever before?
Garfinkel's captivating blend of journalism,
storytelling, and futurism is a call to arms. It will frighten,
entertain, and ultimately convince us that we must take
action now to protect our privacy and identity before it's
too late.
Name: Simson Garfinkel. Date of Birth:
July 12, 1965. Citizenship: USA. Residence: Cambridge, MA.
Education: MIT/Columbia. Family: Wife/Daughter. Eye Color:
Gold. Hair Color: Brown. Blood Type: O+. Website: http://simson.net/.
Employment: High-tech entrepreneur and journalist whose
articles have appeared in more than 50 publications, including
Wired, Computerworld, Forbes, the New York Times, and Technology
Review. His weekly column, Simson Says, appears in the Boston
Globe. Books: Author of eight other books, including Web
Security and Commerce, Architects of the Information Society,
and PGP: Pretty Good Privacy.
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