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Automating the News - How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Media
From hidden connections in big data to bots spreading fake news, journalism is increasingly computer-generated. An expert in computer science and media explains the present and future of a world in which news is created by algorithm. Amid the push for self-driving cars and the roboticization of industrial economies, automation has proven one of the biggest news stories of our time. Yet the wide-scale automation of the news itself has largely escaped attention. In this lively exposé of that rapidly shifting terrain, Nicholas Diakopoulos focuses on the people who tell the stories--increasingly with the help of computer algorithms that are fundamentally changing the creation, dissemination, and reception of the news. Diakopoulos reveals how machine learning and data mining have transformed investigative journalism. Newsbots converse with social media audiences, distributing stories and receiving feedback. Online media has become a platform for A/B testing of content, helping journalists to better understand what moves audiences. Algorithms can even draft certain kinds of stories. These techniques enable media organizations to take advantage of experiments and economies of scale, enhancing the sustainability of the fourth estate. But they also place pressure on editorial decision-making, because they allow journalists to produce more stories, sometimes better ones, but rarely both. Automating the News responds to hype and fears surrounding journalistic algorithms by exploring the human influence embedded in automation. Though the effects of automation are deep, Diakopoulos shows that journalists are at little risk of being displaced. With algorithms at their fingertips, they may work differently and tell different stories than they otherwise would, but their values remain the driving force behind the news. The human-algorithm hybrid thus emerges as the latest embodiment of an age-old tension between commercial imperatives and journalistic principles.
Hacktivism
Hacktivism—from the terms “hacking” and “activism”—has been around since the beginning of the internet. Groups such as WikiLeaks and Anonymous believe that they are promoting freedom of information and transparency, but hacktivism can have unintended consequences and affect innocent individuals. Although frequently lauded for taking up social justice causes, hacktivism is still a form of cybercrime, and hacktivists are the ones who decide what individuals or entities should be targeted based on their own political and moral leanings, operating outside the bounds of societal or legal scrutiny. Techniques can include website defacement and mirroring, denial-of-service attacks designed to take websites offline, and exposing private or confidential information through doxing. This volume of The Reference Shelf explores recent events and controversies in the world of hacktivism, from cyberattacks by Anonymous on Russian computer systems after the invasion of Ukraine to the doxing of Supreme Court justices by pro-choice group Ruth Sent Us.
The Identity Trade : Selling Privacy and Reputation Online
The successes and failures of an industry that claims to protect and promote our online identities What does privacy mean in the digital era? As technology increasingly blurs the boundary between public and private, questions about who controls our data become harder and harder to answer. Our every web view, click, and online purchase can be sold to anyone to store and use as they wish. At the same time, our online reputation has become an important part of our identity--a form of cultural currency. The Identity Trade examines the relationship between online visibility and privacy, and the politics of identity and self-presentation in the digital age. In doing so, Nora Draper looks at the revealing two-decade history of efforts by the consumer privacy industry to give individuals control over their digital image through the sale of privacy protection and reputation management as a service. Through in-depth interviews with industry experts, as well as analysis of media coverage, promotional materials, and government policies, Draper examines how companies have turned the protection and promotion of digital information into a business. Along the way, she also provides insight into how these companies have responded to and shaped the ways we think about image and reputation in the digital age. Tracking the successes and failures of companies claiming to control our digital ephemera, Draper takes us inside an industry that has commodified strategies of information control. This book is a discerning overview of the debate around who controls our data, who buys and sells it, and the consequences of treating privacy as a consumer good.
Internet of Things and Data Analytics Handbook
This book examines the Internet of Things (IoT) and Data Analytics from a technical, application, and business point of view. Internet of Things and Data Analytics Handbook describes essential technical knowledge, building blocks, processes, design principles, implementation, and marketing for IoT projects. It provides readers with knowledge in planning, designing, and implementing IoT projects. The book is written by experts on the subject matter, including international experts from nine countries in the consumer and enterprise fields of IoT. The text starts with an overview and anatomy of IoT, ecosystem of IoT, communication protocols, networking, and available hardware, both present and future applications and transformations, and business models. The text also addresses big data analytics, machine learning, cloud computing, and consideration of sustainability that are essential to be both socially responsible and successful. Design and implementation processes are illustrated with best practices and case studies in action. In addition, the book: Examines cloud computing, data analytics, and sustainability and how they relate to IoT overs the scope of consumer, government, and enterprise applications Includes best practices, business model, and real-world case studies Hwaiyu Geng, P.E., is a consultant with Amica Research (www.AmicaResearch.org, Palo Alto, California), promoting green planning, design, and construction projects. He has had over 40 years of manufacturing and management experience, working with Westinghouse, Applied Materials, Hewlett Packard, and Intel on multi-million high-tech projects. He has written and presented numerous technical papers at international conferences.
IoT Security Issues
IoT Security Issues looks at the burgeoning growth of devices of all kinds controlled over the Internet of all varieties, where product comes first and security second. In this case, security trails badly. This book examines the issues surrounding these problems, vulnerabilities, what can be done to solve the problem, investigating the stack for the roots of the problems and how programming and attention to good security practice can combat the problems today that are a result of lax security processes on the Internet of Things. This book is for people interested in understanding the vulnerabilities on the Internet of Things, such as programmers who have not yet been focusing on the IoT, security professionals and a wide array of interested hackers and makers. This book assumes little experience or knowledge of the Internet of Things. To fully appreciate the book, limited programming background would be helpful for some of the chapters later in the book, though the basic content is explained. The author, Alasdair Gilchrist, has spent 25 years as a company director in the fields of IT, Data Communications, Mobile Telecoms and latterly Cloud/SDN/NFV technologies, as a professional technician, support manager, network and security architect. He has project-managed both agile SDLC software development as well as technical network architecture design. He has experience in the deployment and integration of systems in enterprise, cloud, fixed/mobile telecoms, and service provider networks. He is therefore knowledgeable in a wide range of technologies and has written a number of books in related fields.
Numb: How the Information Age Dulls Our Senses and How We Can Get Them Back
Discover how to manage this noisy world without it managing you. In Numb, distinguished author Dr. Charles R. Chaffin delivers a fun and evidence-based exploration of how you can devote more attention on what you believe is important while ignoring the distractions that increasingly permeate your life. Using research from cognitive, education, positive, and clinical psychology, the book identifies the sources of noise and distraction in this information age and how we can manage it in all aspects of our lives. You'll learn about: How experiences in technology, from social media to selfies to porn, impact our ability to engage and connect with others The news we consume and the impact of confirmation bias, filter bubbles, and tribalism How FOMO and choice overload impact our decision-making The power of our attention in all aspects of our daily lives Perfect for anyone interested in the expanding impact of the information age on our collective psyche, ;Numb helps empower you to use technology and information not as a destination, but as a tool towards authenticity and empowerment.
Privacy Rights in the Digital Age
This new encyclopedia discusses the practical, political, psychological, and philosphical challenges we face as technological advances have changed the landscape of traditional notions of privacy.
Security and Privacy in the Digital Era
"The state, that must eradicate all feelings of insecurity, even potential ones, has been caught in a spiral of exception, suspicion and oppression that may lead to a complete disappearance of liberties." --Mireille Delmas Marty, Libertés et sûreté dans un monde dangereux, 2010 This book will examine the security/freedom duo in space and time with regards to electronic communications and technologies used in social control. It will follow a diachronic path from the relative balance between philosophy and human rights, very dear to Western civilization (at the end of the 20th Century), to the current situation, where there seems to be less freedom in terms of security to the point that some scholars have wondered whether privacy should be redefined in this era. The actors involved (the Western states, digital firms, human rights organizations etc.) have seen their roles impact the legal and political science fields.
Tech Giants, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Journalism
This book examines the impact of the "Big Five" technology companies - Apple, Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft - on journalism and the media industries. It looks at the current role of algorithms and artificial intelligence in curating how we consume media and their increasing influence on the production of the news. Exploring the changes that the technology industry and automation have made in the past decade to the production, distribution and consumption of news globally, the book considers what happens to journalism once it is produced and enters the media ecosystems of the internet tech giants - and the impact of social media and AI on such things as fake news in the post-truth age. The audience for this book are students and researchers working in the field of digital media, and journalism studies or media studies more generally. It will also be useful to those who are looking for extended case studies of the role taken by tech giants such as Facebook and Google in the fake news scandal, or the role of Jeff Bezos in transforming The Washington Post. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351013758, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things : Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture
Why the troll problem is actually a culture problem: how online trolling fits comfortably within today's media landscape. Internet trolls live to upset as many people as possible, using all the technical and psychological tools at their disposal. They gleefully whip the media into a frenzy over a fake teen drug crisis; they post offensive messages on Facebook memorial pages, traumatizing grief-stricken friends and family; they use unabashedly racist language and images. They take pleasure in ruining a complete stranger's day and find amusement in their victim's anguish. In short, trolling is the obstacle to a kinder, gentler Internet. To quote a famous Internet meme, trolling is why we can't have nice things online. Or at least that's what we have been led to believe. In this provocative book, Whitney Phillips argues that trolling, widely condemned as obscene and deviant, actually fits comfortably within the contemporary media landscape. Trolling may be obscene, but, Phillips argues, it isn't all that deviant. Trolls' actions are born of and fueled by culturally sanctioned impulses -- which are just as damaging as the trolls' most disruptive behaviors. Phillips describes, for example, the relationship between trolling and sensationalist corporate media -- pointing out that for trolls, exploitation is a leisure activity; for media, it's a business strategy. She shows how trolls, "the grimacing poster children for a socially networked world," align with social media. And she documents how trolls, in addition to parroting media tropes, also offer a grotesque pantomime of dominant cultural tropes, including gendered notions of dominance and success and an ideology of entitlement. We don't just have a trolling problem, Phillips argues; we have a culture problem. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things isn't only about trolls; it's about a culture in which trolls thrive.
Weaponizing Cyberspace: Inside Russia's Hostile Activities
The Russian regime's struggle for internal control drives multifaceted actions in cyberspace that do not stop at national borders. Cybercrime, technical hacking, and disinformation are complementary tools to preserve national power internally while projecting effects onto myriad neighbors and rivals. Russian activity in the cyber domain is infamous in the United States and other Western countries. Weaponizing Cyberspace explores the Russian proclivity, particularly in the 21st century, for using cyberspace as an environment in which to launch technical attacks and disinformation campaigns that sow chaos and distraction in ways that provide short-term advantage to autocrats in the Kremlin. Arguing that Russia's goal is to divide people, Sambaluk explains that Russia's modus operandi in disinformation campaigning is specifically to find and exploit existing sore spots in other countries. In the U.S., this often means inflaming political tensions among people on the far left and far right. Russia's actions have taken different forms, including the sophisticated surveillance and sabotage of critical infrastructure, the ransoming of data by criminal groups, and a welter of often mutually contradictory disinformation messages that pollute online discourse within and beyond Russia. Whether deployed to contribute to hybrid war or to psychological fracture and disillusionment in targeted societies, the threat is real and must be understood and effectively addressed. Explains how the legacy of Soviet information operations and the modern examples of Russian information operations are similar but not identical to one another Explores the development of Russian domestic information operations techniques that can now be applied against foreign powers Describes the relationships between technical attacks and disinformation often used in confrontations with countries along Russia's borders Examines the role of Russian information operations in U.S. social and political discourse Considers the implications of other countries' reactions that attempt to eliminate the Russian information operation's ability to influence society
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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism : The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit--at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future--if we let it.
Algorithms of Oppression : How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
As seen in Wired and Time A revealing look at how negative biases against women of color are embedded in search engine results and algorithms Run a Google search for "black girls"--what will you find? "Big Booty" and other sexually explicit terms are likely to come up as top search terms. But, if you type in "white girls," the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about "why black women are so sassy" or "why black women are so angry" presents a disturbing portrait of black womanhood in modern society. In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color. Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance--operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond--understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices is of utmost importance. An original, surprising and, at times, disturbing account of bias on the internet, Algorithms of Oppression contributes to our understanding of how racism is created, maintained, and disseminated in the 21st century. Safiya Noble discusses search engine bias in an interview with USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid - Changing Feelings about Technology, from the Telegraph to Twitter
This wide-ranging account of our emotional responses to technologies, from the telegram to Instagram, shows that technology changes not only how we feel, but what our feelings mean. Facebook makes us lonely. Selfies breed narcissism. On Twitter and comment boards, hostility reigns. Pundits and psychologists warn us that digital technologies substantially alter our emotional states. But in this lively and surprising account, we learn that technology doesn't just affect how we feel from moment to moment--it changes profoundly the underlying emotions themselves. Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid examines nineteenth- and twentieth-century letters, diaries, and memoirs and draws on contemporary research and interviews with Americans of different ages and backgrounds to document how our emotions have been transformed by technological change. Where we now strive to escape boredom, earlier generations saw unstructured time as an opportunity for productivity and creativity. Where loneliness is now pathologized, we once thought of solitude as virtuous. Even as we ask whether technology is making us lonelier, it is altering the meaning of loneliness. In this timely book, Luke Fernandez and Susan Matt contend that current technology has removed many of the limits on our emotional landscape. Thus we seek to be constantly stimulated, engaged, and validated, while our anger and antisocial impulses are not only unconstrained but affirmed by the digital company we keep.
Cyberspies : The Secret History of Surveillance, Hacking, and Digital Espionage
As the digital era become increasingly pervasive, the intertwining forces of computers and espionage are reshaping the entire world; what was once the preserve of a few intelligence agencies now affects us all.Corera's compelling narrative takes us from the Second World War through the Cold War and the birth of the internet to the present era of hackers and surveillance. The book is rich with historical detail and characters, as well as astonishing revelations about espionage carried out in recent times by the UK, US, and China. Using unique access to the National Security Agency, GCHQ, Chinese officials, and senior executives from some of the most powerful global technology companies, Gordon Corera has gathered compelling stories from heads of state, hackers and spies of all stripes.Cyberspies is a ground-breaking exploration of the new space in which the worlds of espionage, diplomacy, international business, science, and technology collide.
Digital is Destroying Everything : What the Tech Giants Won't Tell You About How Robots, Big data, and Algorithms Are Radically Remaking Your Future
Every year, perhaps even every week, there is some new gadget, device, service, or other digital offering intended to make our lives easier, better, more fun, or more instantaneous--making it that much harder to question how anything digital can be bad for us. Digital has created some wonderful things and we can hardly imagine life without them. But digital--the most relentless social and economic juggernaut humanity has unleashed in centuries--is also destroying much we had taken for granted. And what is your place in this brave new world? In Digital Is Destroying Everything, futurist and digital marketing consultant Andrew Edwards tours the "blasted heath" digital is leaving behind and takes a fearless look at the troubled landscape that may lie ahead. The book is not, despite its title, a dystopian rant against all things digital and technological. Instead, expect to find a lively investigation into the ways digital has opened us to new and sometimes quite wonderful experiences, driven down costs for consumers, and given information a chance to be free. But the book also takes a clear-eyed look at many of the good (and sometimes bad) things--businesses and behaviors--digital has destroyed, and how the world may be diminished, compromised, and altered forever in its wake. This tour of the effects of digital technologies on our lives is sure to raise questions, touch a nerve, and enlighten even the most dedicated digital enthusiasts.
Don't Be Evil
A penetrating indictment of how today's largest tech companies are hijacking our data, our livelihoods, our social fabric, and our minds--from an acclaimed Financial Times columnist and CNN analyst SHORTLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY EVENING STANDARD "Don't be evil" was enshrined as Google's original corporate mantra back in its early days, when the company's cheerful logo still conveyed the utopian vision for a future in which technology would inevitably make the world better, safer, and more prosperous. Unfortunately, it's been quite a while since Google, or the majority of the Big Tech companies, lived up to this founding philosophy. Today, the utopia they sought to create is looking more dystopian than ever: from digital surveillance and the loss of privacy to the spreading of misinformation and hate speech to predatory algorithms targeting the weak and vulnerable to products that have been engineered to manipulate our desires. How did we get here? How did these once-scrappy and idealistic enterprises become rapacious monopolies with the power to corrupt our elections, co-opt all our data, and control the largest single chunk of corporate wealth--while evading all semblance of regulation and taxes? In Don't Be Evil, Financial Times global business columnist Rana Foroohar tells the story of how Big Tech lost its soul--and ate our lunch. Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access--won through nearly thirty years covering business and technology--she shows the true extent to which behemoths like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon are monetizing both our data and our attention, without us seeing a penny of those exorbitant profits. Finally, Foroohar lays out a plan for how we can resist, by creating a framework that fosters innovation while also protecting us from the dark side of digital technology. Praise for Don't Be Evil "At first sight, Don't Be Evil looks like it's doing for Google what muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell did for Standard Oil over a century ago. But this whip-smart, highly readable book's scope turns out to be much broader. Worried about the monopolistic tendencies of big tech? The addictive apps on your iPhone? The role Facebook played in Donald Trump's election? Foroohar will leave you even more worried, but a lot better informed."--Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, and author of The Square and the Tower
Ethics and Cyber Warfare : The Quest for Responsible Security in the Age of Digital Warfare
From North Korea's recent attacks on Sony to perpetual news reports of successful hackings and criminal theft, cyber conflict has emerged as a major topic of public concern. Yet even as attacks on military, civilian, and commercial targets have escalated, there is not yet a clear set ofethical guidelines that apply to cyber warfare. Indeed, like terrorism, cyber warfare is commonly believed to be a war without rules. Given the prevalence cyber warfare, developing a practical moral code for this new form of conflict is more important than ever. In Ethics and Cyber Warfare, internationally-respected ethicist George Lucas delves into the confounding realm of cyber conflict. Comparing "state-sponsored hacktivism" to the transformative impact of "irregular warfare" in conventional armed conflict, Lucas offers a critique of legal approaches togovernance, and outlines a new approach to ethics and "just war" reasoning. Lucas draws upon the political philosophies of Alasdair MacIntyre, John Rawls, and Jurgen Habermas to provide a framework for understanding these newly-emerging standards for cyber conflict, and ultimately presents aprofessional code of ethics for a new generation of "cyber warriors." Lucas concludes with a discussion of whether preemptive self-defense efforts - such as the massive government surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden - can ever be justified, addressing controversial topics such as privacy, anonymity, and public trust. Well-reasoned and timely, Ethics andCyber Warfare is a must-read for anyone with an interest in philosophy, ethics, or cybercrime.
The Fight for Privacy
Privacy is disappearing. From our sex lives to our workout routines, the details of our lives once relegated to pen and paper have joined the slipstream of new technology. As a MacArthur fellow and distinguished professor of law at the University of Virginia, acclaimed civil rights advocate Danielle Citron has spent decades working with lawmakers and stakeholders across the globe to protect what she calls intimate privacy--encompassing our bodies, health, gender, and relationships. When intimate privacy becomes data, corporations know exactly when to flash that ad for a new drug or pregnancy test. Social and political forces know how to manipulate what you think and who you trust, leveraging sensitive secrets and deepfake videos to ruin or silence opponents. And as new technologies invite new violations, people have power over one another like never before, from revenge porn to blackmail, attaching life-altering risks to growing up, dating online, or falling in love.A masterful new look at privacy in the twenty-first century, The Fight for Privacy takes the focus off Silicon Valley moguls to investigate the price we pay as technology migrates deeper into every aspect of our lives: entering our bedrooms and our bathrooms and our midnight texts; our relationships with friends, family, lovers, and kids; and even our relationship with ourselves.Drawing on in-depth interviews with victims, activists, and advocates, Citron brings this headline issue home for readers by weaving together visceral stories about the countless ways that corporate and individual violators exploit privacy loopholes. Exploring why the law has struggled to keep up, she reveals how our current system leaves victims--particularly women, LGBTQ+ people, and marginalized groups--shamed and powerless while perpetrators profit, warping cultural norms around the world.Yet there is a solution to our toxic relationship with technology and privacy: fighting for intimate privacy as a civil right. Collectively, Citron argues, citizens, lawmakers, and corporations have the power to create a new reality where privacy is valued and people are protected as they embrace what technology offers. Introducing readers to the trailblazing work of advocates today, Citron urges readers to join the fight. Your intimate life shouldn't be traded for profit or wielded against you for power: it belongs to you. With Citron as our guide, we can take back control of our data and build a better future for the next, ever more digital, generation.
Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy : The Many Faces of Anonymous
Here is the ultimate book on the worldwide movement of hackers, pranksters, and activists that operates under the non-name Anonymous, by the writer theHuffington Post says knows all of Anonymous' deepest, darkest secrets. Half a dozen years ago, anthropologist Gabriella Coleman set out to study the rise of this global phenomenon just as some of its members were turning to political protest and dangerous disruption (before Anonymous shot to fame as a key player in the battles over WikiLeaks, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street). She ended up becoming so closely connected to Anonymous that the tricky story of her inside-outside status as Anon confidante, interpreter, and erstwhile mouthpiece forms one of the themes of this witty and entirely engrossing book.The narrative brims with details unearthed from within a notoriously mysterious subculture, whose semi-legendary tricksters - such as Topiary, tflow, Anachaos, and Sabu - emerge as complex, diverse, politically and culturally sophisticated people. Propelled by years of chats and encounters with a multitude of hackers, including imprisoned activist Jeremy Hammond and the double agent who helped put him away, Hector Monsegur, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy is filled with insights into the meaning of digital activism and little understood facets of culture in the Internet age, including the history of trolling, the ethics and metaphysics of hacking, and the origins and manifold meanings of the lulz.
Internet Abuses and Privacy Rights
From the controversy surrounding Edward Snowden's security leak of classified information, to hacked email accounts of prominent political candidates, internet privacy and cyber security present major ethical issues in today's technology-centric society. Countries are challenged to find the right balance in securing personal data and how to regulate the sale and exchange of information obtained on the internet. Innovative technologies and data collection that enable novel modes of interaction and new opportunities for knowledge can also be abused to invade people's privacy, provide new tools of discrimination, and harm individuals and communities. This title will address both sides of this complex topic.
Messing with the Enemy : Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News
A former FBI Special Agent, U.S. Army officer and leading cyber-security expert offers a devastating and essential look at the misinformation campaigns, fake news, and electronic espionage operations that have become the cutting edge of modern warfare--and how we can protect ourselves and our country against them. Clint Watts electrified the nation when he testified in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. In Messing with the Enemy, the counterterrorism, cybersecurity and homeland security expert introduces us to a frightening world in which terrorists and cyber criminals don't hack your computer, they hack your mind. Watts reveals how these malefactors use your social media information and that of your family, friends and colleagues to map your social networks, identify your vulnerabilities, master your fears and harness your preferences. Thanks to the schemes engineered by social media manipulators using you and your information, business executives have coughed up millions in fraudulent wire transfers, seemingly good kids have joined the Islamic State, and staunch anti-communist Reagan Republicans have cheered the Russian government's hacking of a Democratic presidential candidate's e-mails. Watts knows how they do it because he's mirrored their methods to understand their intentions, combat their actions, and coopt their efforts. Watts examines a range of social media platforms--from the first Internet forums to the current titans of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn--and nefarious actors--from al Qaeda to the Islamic State to the Russian social media troll farm--to illuminate exactly how they use Western social media for their nefarious purposes. He explains how he's learned, through his successes and his failures, to engage with hackers, terrorists, and even the Russians--and how these interactions have generated methods for fighting back against those that seek to harm people on the Internet. He concludes with a snapshot of how advances in artificial intelligence will make future influence even more effective and dangerous to social media users and democratic governments worldwide. Shocking, funny, and eye-opening, Messing with the Enemy is a deeply urgent guide for living safe and smart in a super-connected world.
Outnumbered : From Facebook and Google to Fake News and Filter-Bubbles--The Algorithms That Control Our Lives
Outnumbered is a journey to the dark side of mathematics, from how it dictates our social media activities to our travel routes. Algorithms are running our society, and as Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal has revealed, we don't even realize how our data has been used against us. David Sumpter investigates whether mathematics is crossing dangerous lines when it comes to what we can make decisions about. Our increasing reliance on technology and the internet has opened a window for mathematicians and data researchers to gaze through into our lives. Using the data they are constantly collecting about where we travel, where we shop, what we buy, and what interests us, they can begin to predict our daily habits, and increasingly we are relinquishing our decision-making to algorithms. Are we giving this up too easily? Without understanding what mathematics can and can't do it is impossible to get a handle on how it is changing our lives. In this book, David Sumpter takes an algorithm-strewn journey to the dark side of mathematics. He investigates the equations that analyze us, influence us and will (maybe) become like us, answering questions like: Who are Cambridge Analytica, and what are they doing with our data? How does Facebook build a 100-dimensional picture of your personality? Are Google algorithms racist and sexist? Why do election predictions fail so drastically? Are algorithms that are designed to find criminals making terrible mistakes? What does the future hold as we relinquish our decision-making to machines? Featuring interviews with those working at the cutting edge of algorithm,Outnumbered explains how mathematics and statistics work in the real world, and what we should and shouldn't worry about.
Reading the Comments : Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web
What we can learn about human nature from the informative, manipulative, confusing, and amusing messages at the bottom of the web. Online comment can be informative or misleading, entertaining or maddening. Haters and manipulators often seem to monopolize the conversation. Some comments are off-topic, or even topic-less. In this book, Joseph Reagle urges us to read the comments. Conversations "on the bottom half of the Internet," he argues, can tell us much about human nature and social behavior. Reagle visits communities of Amazon reviewers, fan fiction authors, online learners, scammers, freethinkers, and mean kids. He shows how comment can inform us (through reviews), improve us (through feedback), manipulate us (through fakery), alienate us (through hate), shape us (through social comparison), and perplex us. He finds pre-Internet historical antecedents of online comment in Michelin stars, professional criticism, and the wisdom of crowds. He discusses the techniques of online fakery (distinguishing makers, fakers, and takers), describes the emotional work of receiving and giving feedback, and examines the culture of trolls and haters, bullying, and misogyny. He considers the way comment--a nonstop stream of social quantification and ranking--affects our self-esteem and well-being. And he examines how comment is puzzling--short and asynchronous, these messages can be slap-dash, confusing, amusing, revealing, and weird, shedding context in their passage through the Internet, prompting readers to comment in turn, "WTF?!?"
Seek and Hide : the tangled history of the right to privacy
"Gajda's chronicle reveals an enduring tension between principles of free speech and respect for individuals' private lives. ...just the sort of road map we could use right now."--The Atlantic "Wry and fascinating...Gajda is a nimble storyteller [and] an insightful guide to a rich and textured history that gets easily caricatured, especially when a culture war is raging."--The New York Times An urgent book for today's privacy wars: the surprising history of the fitful development of the right to privacy--and its battle against the public's right to know. The battle between an individual's right to privacy and the public's right to know has been fought for centuries. The founders demanded privacy for all the wrong press-quashing reasons. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis famously promoted First Amendment freedoms but argued strongly for privacy too; and presidents from Thomas Jefferson through Donald Trump confidently hid behind privacy despite intense public interest in their lives. Today privacy seems simultaneously under siege and surging. And that's doubly dangerous, as legal expert Amy Gajda argues. Too little privacy can mean extraordinary profits and power for people who deal in and publish soul-crushing secrets. Too much means the famous and infamous can cloak themselves in secrecy. Seek and Hide carries us from the very start, when privacy concepts first entered American law and society, to now, when the law allows a Silicon Valley titan to destroy a media site like Gawker out of spite. Muckraker Upton Sinclair, like Nellie Bly before him, pushed the envelope of privacy and propriety and then became a privacy advocate when journalists used the same techniques against him. By the early 2000s we were on our way to today's full-blown crisis in the digital age, worrying that smartphones, webcams, basement publishers, and the forever internet had erased the right to privacy completely. Should everyone have privacy in their personal lives? Can privacy exist in a public place? Is there a right to be forgotten even in the United States? Is it too late to get control of data privacy? This fascinating and necessary book shows us how the answers may not be what you expect, or hope, how technology makes these issues more complicated than ever before, and how we can learn from the mistakes of the past as we try to balance privacy and First Amendment freedoms in a modern age.
Technically Wrong : Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask why all these digital products are designed the way they are. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares: Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.Sara Wachter-Boettcher takes an unflinching look at the values, processes, and assumptions that lead to these and other problems. Technically Wrong demystifies the tech industry, leaving those of us on the other side of the screen better prepared to make informed choices about the services we use--and demand more from the companies behind them.
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