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by Randy Cassingham

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Technology and Society Book Reviews

Published weekly by Curt Frye, the site includes more than 100 reviews of books dealing with privacy, individual rights, electronic commerce, net culture, ethics, rhetoric, and science fiction -- all without advertising.

From This is True for 2 November 2003

Suggestions for further reading:

Web Security, Privacy and Commerce, 2nd Edition
By: Simson Garfinkel
List Price: $44.95
Amazon Price: $38.16
Editorial Review:
Since the first edition of this classic reference was published, World Wide Web use has exploded and e-commerce has become a daily part of business and personal life. As Web use has grown, so have the threats to our security and privacy--from credit card fraud to routine invasions of privacy by marketers to web site defacements to attacks that shut down popular web sites. Web Security, Privacy & Commerce goes behind the headlines, examines the major security risks facing us today, and explains how we can minimize them. It describes risks for Windows and Unix, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, and a wide range of current programs and products. In vast detail, the book covers: Web technology--The technological underpinnings of the modern Internet and the cryptographic foundations of e-commerce are discussed, along with SSL (the Secure Sockets Layer), the significance of the PKI (Public Key Infrastructure), and digital identification, including passwords, digital signatures, and biometrics. Web privacy and security for users--Learn the real risks to user privacy, including cookies, log files, identity theft, spam, web logs, and web bugs, and the most common risk, users' own willingness to provide e-commerce sites with personal information. Hostile mobile code in plug-ins, ActiveX controls, Java applets, and JavaScript, Flash, and Shockwave programs are also covered. Web server security--Administrators and service providers discover how to secure their systems and web services. Topics include CGI, PHP, SSL certificates, law enforcement issues, and more. Web content security--Zero in on web publishing issues for content providers, including intellectual property, copyright and trademark issues, P3P and privacy policies, digital payments, client-side digital signatures, code signing, pornography filtering and PICS, and other controls on web content. Nearly double the size of the first edition, this completely updated volume is destined to be the definitive reference on Web security risks and the techniques and technologies you can use to protect your privacy, your organization, your system, and your network.
 
Net Worth
By: John Hagel IIIMarc Singer
List Price: $24.95
Amazon Price: $19.96
Editorial Review:
No one ever said consumerism was easy. At one end, the poor consumer faces a bewildering array of goods and services. On the other, vendors contend with a diverse and fragmented marketplace that makes finding the right set of customers akin to finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. And in between are the billions misspent on muffed purchases and broken marketing campaigns that serve only to stuff mailboxes and alienate the very customers that vendors are trying to attract. The rise of e-commerce has only intensified the problem by offering consumers even greater choice and vendors more competition. John Hagel and Marc Singer think they've got a better idea, and in Net Worth, they present an online scenario that would end this chaos and give both customers and vendors what they really want.

At the heart of Hagel and Singer's solution is the "infomediary" that sits between the customer and vendor. For the consumer, the infomediary acts as a trustworthy agent who knows the needs and habits of the client. For the vendor, the infomediary is the holy grail of consumer behavior, a marketer's dream. The infomediary brokers client information to vendors in exchange for goods and services for the consumer. The result? Happy consumers, satisfied marketers, and a very lucrative business model that awaits those entrepreneurs and companies that are bold enough to embrace the idea. The authors painstakingly outline the challenges and opportunities of developing an infomediary business and go as far as to peg the potential market cap of a dominant player at $20 billion by its fifth year of operation. While the idea of software agents is nothing new, Hagel and Singer may be breathing new life into the idea at just the right time. And even if infomediaries never arise, following the thinking of Hagel and Singer is well worth the price of admission. For marketers, managers, entrepreneurs, and just about anyone who thinks about e-commerce. Highly recommended. --Harry C. EdwardsConsumers already recognize the need to protect their privacy when using the Internet to communicate, browse for information, and purchase goods and services. With Net Worth, authors Hagel and Singer build an intriguing scenario in which customers take control of their personal data and refuse to surrender it without some compensation. As customers search for the best deal and the safest place for their information assets, an opportunity emerges for firms to leverage new, web-based strategies and act as infomediaries--brokers or intermediaries who help customers maximize the value of their data. Net Worth constructs a new business model around the infomediary, and reveals the coming battle among infomediaries for customers' trust and private information. The authors examine the opportunities the infomediary will present for businesses and consumers alike, as customer-centric brands rise up as the primary source of new value creation, forcing companies to reassess the nature of their core businesses and their long-held beliefs about brands and marketing.Net Worth explains how businesses can benefit by forming new partnerships with customers in matters of information capture and privacy. Consumers are losing patience with companies that use personal data about buying habits, income levels, and credit card usage for corporate gain. What consumers need is a new kind of business--an information intermediary or infomediary--to protect customers' privacy while maximizing their information assets. Companies playing the infomediary role will become agents of customer information, marketing such data to businesses on consumers' behalf and protecting consumer privacy. John Hagel, co-author of the bestselling Net Gain, teams with Marc Singer to lay out the underlying economic and competitive dynamics that will foster the emerging business of the infomediary. Net Worth identifies the convergence of commerce, technology, and consumer frustration as the incubator for the infomediary business, as consumers seek to release their personal information only when they can receive value in exchange for their data.


 
Marketing in the In-Between: A Post-Modern Turn on Madison Avenue
By: Len Ellis
List Price: $12.99
Amazon Price: $12.99
Editorial Review:
Marketing in the early 21st century is dominated by two approaches, neither of which is visible to the naked eye: the use of data to define and shape human affairs into machine-readable form and the effort to create and sustain ongoing two-way relationships with customers. The former is one way human life is being subjugated to the regime of the machine; the latter is one way the individual may one day emerge from within the datascape. A post-modern perspective is used to reveal both the 'kaleidoroscope' of data and the 'raw immaterials' of relationships in two companion essays.
 
Borders in Cyberspace: Information Policy and the Global Information Infrastr...
List Price: $35.00
Amazon Price: $35.00
Editorial Review:
The international nature of the Internet often conflicts with national differences in law, social values, and public policy. Within national boundaries, local ordinances add another layer of discord. And many governments have been caught off-guard by the Net's explosive growth. Some concern and confusion can be attributed to laws developed for earlier forms of media and business transactions. The contributors to this collection of essays wrestle with the emerging questions posed by a medium that defies national boundaries in ways previously unknown and woefully unexpected. Among the issues covered are intellectual property, commerce, security, privacy, and censorship.Today millions of technologically empowered individuals are able to participate freely in international transactions and enterprises, social and economic. These activities are governed by national and local laws designed for simpler times and now challenged by a new technological and market environment as well as by the practicalities and politics of enforcement across national boundaries.

Borders in Cyberspace investigates issues arising from national differences in law, public policy, and social and cultural values as these differences are reformulated in the emerging global information infrastructure. The contributions include detailed analyses of some of the most visible issues, including intellectual property, security, privacy, and censorship.
 
Protecting Yourself Online: The Definitive Resource on Safety and Privacy in ...
By: Robert B. GelmanStanton McCandlish
List Price: $16.00
Amazon Price: $16.00
Editorial Review:
Too many cyberspace pundits fail to deliver constructive ideas on how to deal with issues of safety, privacy, and censorship online. Protecting Yourself Online, penned by members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), is a splendid exception that makes good on its claim to be the definitive resource for practical solutions to these problems.

The authors cover a lot of territory in a concise, direct manner. Among the topics are free expression and online censorship, reconciling individual liberties with community standards, secure communications and online commerce, and the protection of intellectual property online. One excellent chapter deals with netiquette, spam, hackers, computer viruses, and flames. A major focus is placed on recognizing online spoofs and scams, whether it be an e-mail advertisement that is too good to be true or people who aren't who they say they are.

Additional topics include protecting yourself from spam and mail bombs, issues of government control online, and how can you protect your personal information (including credit-card numbers, medical information, and passwords) by using encryption and authentication. The book also delves into dealing with e-mail flames, children on the Internet, and even how the U.S. Constitution might apply over an international network. Each issue is discussed calmly, rationally, and without sensationalism.

The EFF, founded in 1990 as a nonprofit organization to defend civil liberties and rights in cyberspace, has consistently been at the forefront of the debate on freedom and responsibility online. Perhaps its most famous case was the campaign against online censorship that started in reaction to the Communications Decency Act's initial passage. --Elizabeth LewisLike any new frontier, cyberspace offers both exhilarating possibilities and unforeseen hazards. As personal information about us travels the globe on high-speed networks, often with neither our knowledge nor our consent, a solid understanding of privacy and security issues is vital to the preservation of our rights and civil liberties. In reaping the benefits of the information age while safeguarding ourselves from its perils, the choices we make and the precedents we establish today will be central in defining the future of the electronic frontier.

Since 1991, the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has worked to protect freedoms and advocate responsibility in new media and the online world. In Protecting Yourself Online,  Robert Gelman has drawn on the collective insight and experience of EFF to present a comprehensive guide to self-protection in the electronic frontier. In accessible, clear-headed language, Protecting Yourself Online  addresses such issues as:

avoiding spam [junk mail] spotting online scams and hoaxes protecting yourself from identity theft and fraud guarding your email privacy [and knowing when you can't] assessing the danger of viruses keeping the net free of censorship and safe for your children protecting your intellectual property

Produced by the leading civil libertarians of the digital age, and including a foreword by one of the most respected leaders in global business and the cyberworld, Esther Dyson, Protecting Yourself Online is an essential resource for new media newcomers and old Internet hands alike.


 
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