Data and Goliath The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World

DATA AND GOLIATH

“Data and Goliath is sorely needed. On top of the ongoing avalanche of stories of cyberwarfare, data breaches, and corporate snooping, the Snowden revelations have left many people confused and cynical about protecting their own privacy. My hope is that Bruce Schneier’s new book will empower people to join the conversation in the courts and elsewhere about how to think seriously and honestly about our current digital surveillance state and more importantly, how to build a digital society run by the consent of the governed.”

—Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation

“Bruce Schneier has written a hugely insightful and important book about how big data and its cousin, mass surveillance, affect our lives, and what to do about it. In characteristic fashion, Schneier takes very complex and varied information and ideas and makes them vivid, accessible, and compelling.”

—Jack Goldsmith, former head of the Office of Legal

Counsel of the Department of Justice under George W. Bush

“The internet is a surveillance state, and like any technology, surveillance has both good and bad uses. Bruce Schneier draws on his vast range of technical and historical skills to sort them out. He analyzes both the challenge of big brother and many little brothers. Anyone interested in security, liberty, privacy, and justice in this cyber age must read this book.”

—Joseph S. Nye Jr., Harvard University Distinguished

Service Professor and author of The Future of Power

“Bruce Schneier is the most consistently sober, authoritative, and knowledgeable voice on security and privacy issues in our time. This book brings his experience and sharp analytical skills to important and fast-evolving technology and human rights issues. Much has been said about the way our government, financial institutions, and online entities gather data, but less is said about how that seemingly infinite ocean of data is used, or might be used. In the face of a vast spectrum of possibility, clouded in secrecy, Bruce’s book is a voice of steady reason.”

—Xeni Jardin, co-editor of BoingBoing

“Data and Goliath is the indispensable guide to understanding the most important current threat to freedom in democratic market societies. Whether you worry about government surveillance in the post-Snowden era, or about Facebook and Google manipulating you based on their vast data collections, Schneier, the leading, truly independent expert writing about these threats today, offers a rich overview of the technologies and practices leading us toward surveillance society and the diverse solutions we must pursue to save us from that fate.”

—Yochai Benkler, Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School and author of The Wealth of Networks

“Data, algorithms, and thinking machines give our corporations and political institutions immense and far reaching powers. Bruce Schneier has done a remarkable job of breaking down their impact on our privacy, our lives, and our society. Data and Goliath should be on everyone’s must read list.”

Praise for

—Om Malik, founder of Gigaom

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a “security guru” by The Economist. He is the author of twelve books—including Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust Society Needs to Survive—as well as hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. His influential newsletter “Crypto-Gram” and blog “Schneier on Security” are read by over 250,000 people. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, a program fellow at the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and an Advisory Board member of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. He is also the Chief Technology Officer of Resilient Systems, Inc.

You can read his blog, essays, and academic papers at www.schneier.com. He tweets at @schneierblog.

As of press time, the URLs displayed in this book link or refer to existing websites on the Internet. W. W. Norton & Company is not responsible for, and should not be deemed to endorse or recommend, any website other than its own or any content available on the Internet (including without limitation at any website, blog page, information page) not created or maintained by W. W. Norton.

Copyright © 2015 by Bruce Schneier

All rights reserved

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DATA AND GOLIATH