Digital connectivity is part of our daily lives. We store our data in the cloud, synchronize our devices with emails, browsers, calendars, and documents, date and shop online, and drive AI-powered cars. And yet, many of us think of the cyberworld as something intangible, separated from reality. Instead, the cyberworld can affect our lives and society. Here are ten books that will introduce you to the digital world, where villains and heroes fight their battles on keyboards.
The need for individuals to understand how technology works is no longer an option. The books we choose cover various topics, from the basics of cyber security to ethical and sociological issues.
Stealing your life: the ultimate identity theft prevention plan
Author: Frank W. Abagnale
When Frank Abagnale trains law enforcement officers about identity theft, he asks them for their names, addresses, and nothing more. In a matter of hours, he can obtain everything he would need to steal their lives: Social Security numbers, dates of birth, current salaries, checking account numbers, the names of everyone in their families, and more. He demonstrates how easy it is for anyone, from anywhere in the world, to assume our identities and devastate our lives. An identity is stolen every four seconds. Stealing Your Life will show you how to protect yourself from identity theft schemes.
Surviving a cyberstalker: How to Prevent and Survive Cyberabuse and Stalking
Author: Alexis Moore
She overcame her own experience of domestic violence, stalking, and cyberstalking. Alexis Moore eventually got her life back and vowed to help others in similar circumstances. As a result, she passed the bar and established her own legal practice and business. Today, she is a cyberstalking, stalking, and privacy protection consultant worldwide. In Surviving a Cyberstalker, Alexis tells her story and explains how to regain control over your life in case a cyber predator or stalker crosses your path.NETWORKS OF CONTROL: A Report on Corporate Surveillance, Digital Tracking, Big Data & Privacy
Authors: Wolfie Chrtistl, Sara Spiekermann
Network of Control is a study that focuses on the concept of the so-called “surveillance society.” In their daily activities online, users leave a trail of personal information and data companies programmatically collect to track and profile them. As a result, algorithms place them into categories that cause people to be treated differently based on their identity. This book explores these data-gathering practices scientifically and explains this discriminatory treatment and its effects on people and society.
AI ethics
Author: M
Artificial intelligence powers Google’s search engine enables Facebook to target advertising and allows Alexa and Siri to do their jobs. AI is also behind self-driving cars, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. These and other AI applications raise complex ethical issues that are the subject of ongoing debate. Written by a philosopher of technology, AI Ethics goes beyond the usual hype and nightmare scenarios to address concrete questions.
Outsmarting Your Kids Online: A Safety Handbook for Overwhelmed Parents
In this book, tech expert Amber Mac and Internet security expert Michael Bazzell provide the ultimate handbook for parenting in today’s digital world. From understanding social media concerns to learning about tomorrow’s technology trends, from considering app risks to reporting digital bullies, from enabling monitoring solutions to identifying warning signs, this book empowers overwhelmed parents to make smarter online decisions to protect their kids properly. Dating Divide: Race and Desire in the Era of Online Romance
Authors:
The Dating Divide is the first comprehensive look at “digital-sexual racism.” This is a distinct form of racism that is mediated and amplified through the impersonal and anonymous context of online dating. The authors draw on large-scale behavioural data from a mainstream dating website, extensive archival research, and more than seventy-five in-depth interviews with daters of diverse racial backgrounds and sexual identities. They illustrate how the seemingly open space of the internet interacts with the loss of social inhibition in cyberspace, fostering open forms of sexual racism that are rarely exposed in face-to-face encounters.
Cyberpsychology: The Study of Individuals, Society and Digital Technologies
Author:
Cyberpsychology is a new field of study that examines the psychology of interactions between individuals, societies and digital technologies. This textbook offers a complete introduction to the subject, addressing a wide range of topics on online behaviour: online identity, online dating and relationships, pornography, cyberbullying, children’s use of the Internet, online games and gambling, deception, and online crime.
The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits' Improbable Crusade to Save the World from Cybercrime
Authors:
Scattered worldwide, an elite team of code crackers is working tirelessly to thwart cyber criminals. You’ve probably never heard of them. Regardless, you may know the team’s sworn enemy: ransomware. Again and again, an unlikely band of misfits, mostly self-taught and often struggling to make ends meet, have outwitted the underworld of hackers who lock computer networks and demand payments in return for the keys. The Ransomware Hunting Team traces the adventures of these unassuming heroes and how they have used their skills to save millions of ransomware victims from paying billions of dollars to criminals.
Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker
Author: Kevin Mitnick
Written by one of history’s most elusive computer hackers, this book narrates what it takes to access computers and networks at the world’s biggest companies. Motorola, Sun Microsystems, and Pacific Bell were some of his most famous victims. And no matter the complexity of the systems, he always was a step ahead. Mitnick would elude the best cyber defences like a magician, jumping through phone switches, computer systems, and cellular networks. Until the Feds eventually brought him down.
Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous
Author: Gabriella Coleman
Before Anonymous shot to fame as a critical player in the battles over WikiLeaks, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street, anthropologist Gabriella Coleman set out to study the rise of this global phenomenon. She ended up becoming closely connected to Anonymous. She is one of the few insiders who can describe a notoriously mysterious subculture and its complex, diverse, politically and culturally sophisticated people.
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