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    Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance
    Unavailable
    Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance
    Unavailable
    Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance
    Ebook470 pages6 hours

    Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance

    By Julia Angwin

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook


    An inside look at who's watching you, what they know and why it matters. We are being watched.

    We see online ads from websites we've visited, long after we've moved on to other interests. Our smartphones and cars transmit our location, enabling us to know what's in the neighborhood but also enabling others to track us. And the federal government, we recently learned, has been conducting a massive data-gathering surveillance operation across the Internet and on our phone lines.

    In Dragnet Nation, award-winning investigative journalist Julia Angwin reports from the front lines of America's surveillance economy, offering a revelatory and unsettling look at how the government, private companies, and even criminals use technology to indiscriminately sweep up vast amounts of our personal data. In a world where we can be watched in our own homes, where we can no longer keep secrets, and where we can be impersonated, financially manipulated, or even placed in a police lineup, Angwin argues that the greatest long-term danger is that we start to internalize the surveillance and censor our words and thoughts, until we lose the very freedom that makes us unique individuals. Appalled at such a prospect, Angwin conducts a series of experiments to try to protect herself, ranging from quitting Google to carrying a "burner" phone, showing how difficult it is for an average citizen to resist the dragnets' reach.
    Her book is a cautionary tale for all of us, with profound implications for our values, our society, and our very selves.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateFeb 25, 2014
    ISBN9780805098082
    Unavailable
    Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance
    Author

    Julia Angwin

    Julia Angwin is the author of Stealing MySpace and an award-winning investigative journalist for the independent news organization ProPublica. From 2000 to 2013 she was a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she was on the team of reporters awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of corporate corruption and led a team covering online privacy that was a finalist for a 2012 Pulitzer Prize. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

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    Reviews for Dragnet Nation

    4/5

    44 ratings10 reviews

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    • 1/5
      To start with, this book is written by a well known reporter. This idea, leading into the book, quickly dissolved any hope I had of the facts utilized in the book being well researched. I say this due to the facts in the first chapter being very incorrect and under-researched to the point of making a website used by many people with serious illnesses sound like a meeting place for suicidal and drug dependent people alone. This really agitated me. From there on I found so many spelling, grammatical, and factual errors that I was unable to complete the book itself. My advice to Amgwin is to get better at her job before she writes another book based on "facts."
    • 4/5
      Scary tale this book tells. In the end, Angwin basically gives up on completely securing her privacy because she values the online connections she has. Her suggestions for improving personal privacy in the face of massive personal data collection are worth reading. And, her path to these conclusions makes for some very interesting, and infuriating, reading.
    • 2/5
      I feel bad about giving such a low rating, compared to all the other extensive and glowing reviews already posted. The reason is not the content of the book. It seems comprehensive and useful. However, I couldn't read far into the book because of the poor writing. There were many sentences with what I call "different" traps. Such as "people create their passwords different ways at different times for different web sites." (That's not a quote.) Such constructions leave me discouraged. I've wasted those seconds reading a sentence that tells me nothing at all. There were other examples of poor writing. I was surprised that a respected journalist would write this way. The book could have been so much better with an editor.
    • 4/5
      This was an informative and eye opening book a about how we aren't as private as we think we are. It's well written and gives practical tips about how to be a little more safe with our personal info.
    • 4/5
      This is an important book and I'm glad I had the opportunity to read it. For those of concerned about privacy, it's a useful read.The book is structured like a memoir. The author was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Refreshingly, she's a married mom with two kids. I say this because, normally the people writing about government surveillance and privacy issues are single, white men. She begins the book with a brief review of privacy and government violation of it from the beginning of the republic to now. The rest of the book is taken up with her mission to retake as much of her privacy as possible and leave the smallest possible digital footprint.She finds that it is no easy task retaking your personal information from the data brokers. We are constantly tracked while online. "Anonymous" profiles of people are assembled by these data brokers based on what websites people visit. Based on the information they collect, they'll present you with ads based on your presumed interests. More detailed profiles of people are assembled and used to determine what prices you see for say insurance or plane tickets.This book was a real eye-opener for me. I took for granted that my moves online were tracked, but I had no idea to the degree which it is done. Most troubling is this data industry is completely unregulated. Once they have your data, you cannot compel them to reveal what they know or to delete their data on you. The only exception to this is your credit score.I dog-eared and underlined quite a few sections in this book because she has practical tips for minimizing your exposure. I hope that if this book goes to a paperback edition, she'll assemble some of the more useful tips into a single section at the end of the book.I think the author's conclusion to her book is a bit Pollyannaish. She argues that pollution used to be much worse in the US (an example she sites are rivers bursting into flames, and that for the most part rivers are much cleaner). Pollution is a non-specific problem like the privacy problem, but people got together and encouraged Congress to pass laws that prevent the dumping of chemicals in our rivers. I disagree. I think people have gotten too inured to having little privacy. I see things getting much worse and staying that way. People voluntarily join facebook and are happy to share nearly everything about their lives (I'm looking at you people that post pictures of your food).My one complaint about this book is her brief reference to bookstores. "Similarly, I used to go to my local bookstore and buy books in cash. Now, all the bookstores are dying, and Amazon is my local bookstore." If you order on Amazon because of the convenience or the prices, fine, it's understandable. But don't pretend like you would still go to your local bookstore if it hadn't closed. You stopped going because of the uber convenience of Amazon. Furthermore, this author lives in New York City, and there are no independent bookstores left in New York City, really?But aside from my tirade on this minor thing, the book is excellent and I would recommend it to those concerned about their privacy.
    • 5/5
      This was a very enjoyable book from beginning to end. I am now well versed in online privacy concerns and also how to thwart the privacy thieves. At the end of the book I found myself wanting a list of all of Ms. Angwin's favorite privacy tools and I can picture myself referring back to this book regarding various topics in the future.
    • 4/5
      Privacy, needless to say, is a very big issue these days, and in this book Julia Angwin attempts to navigate both herself and the reader through it all, investigating just how vulnerable our personal data is not just to government surveillance, but also to private companies looking to harvest information for marketing purposes. The answer to that, unsurprisingly, is very. Although maybe "unsurprisingly" isn't quite the right word there, because I thought I was fully braced to hear just how bad the situation was, but some of the things Angwin found still surprised me. Most particularly, she is concerned with the proliferation of the "dragnet" form of information-gathering, in which data is collected indiscriminately on large numbers of people, whether it's the NSA keeping records of everybody's phone calls or tracking cookies monitoring the behavior of everyone who visits a website.Angwin starts the book off with a chapter about ways in which information about us can be collected and how that can be harmful, which is reasonably informative, but rather dry. Then she tells a couple of individual stories. One is about a couple of people who discovered that the internet forum they thought was a safe space in which to talk about their mental health issues was actually selling information about them to pharmaceutical companies. The other is about a young man who was placed under surveillance by the FBI for the offense of Participating in a Disparaging Internet Conversation About Airport Security While Muslim. Or, more accurately, for having a buddy guilty of said offense. These stories are anecdotal, of course, but they do illustrate some of the personal cost of violated privacy.At this point, the book suddenly shifts into first person, which is a bit odd after two chapters narrated in a style of journalistic distance, but it's also the point where it becomes more engaging and more personally relevent, as Angwin takes us through her own investigations into where her (and, presumably, our) data ends up and tries out various ways to take control of what others can learn about her. These efforts range from very simple things, such as installing an ad-blocker in her browser, to complicated and rather paranoid-sounding efforts, including obtaining credit cards under a false name. Which I didn't even realize was legal, but apparently it is.Angwin clearly believes that privacy issues in the modern world are a problem, one that invites us to carefully consider what kind of society we want to live in. She raises good, thoughtful points on the subject, without ever getting politically ranty or trying to convince us to take up any extreme positions. No "The gummint/evil corporations are spying on you so they can take over your life, and the only thing for a decent American to do is to go off the grid and live in a shack full of guns/hippie commune!" rhetoric here, thank goodness.But, short of the commune/shack option, what can we do to protect our privacy in today's wired-in wold? Depressingly, the answer seems to be "not very much." The various strategies Angwin uses seem, at least for those of us who aren't journalists with sources to protect, to involve a hell of a lot of difficulty and inconvenience for very little practical effect. Even Angwin, who is clearly trying to keep an optimistic attitude, sees things like using e-mail encryption to be useful more as a form of political protest than anything. She believes it's important to send the message that privacy is important to us, that a lack of control over who has what information about us isn't something we'll simply yawn and accept. In principle, I think she's probably right. In practice... God, even taking small steps in that direction sounds exhausting. So mostly I think she's just succeeded in making me feel even worse about my own passivity than I did before. Still, at least now I am better informed, and that's something. Right?
    • 5/5
      Journalist Julia Angwin writes meaningfully about invasions into our privacy. It happens more than you realize. There are ways though to avoid much of the intrusion into our personal lives. You'll probably never totally escape it, but much of the spying can be thwarted. Angwin shows how. She feels it is nobody's business where she goes, or the conversations she has, as long as she is obeying the law. If you want to make a meaningful dent in the amount of personal information you are giving up, habits must be altered. Chances are you use Google for online searches. The author tells why you would be well-advised to switch over to DuckDuckGo. If you carry your cell phone with you, you might want to wrap it in aluminum foil. You might wish to purchase a wallet made to block radio frequency identification of credit cards. Maybe you would like to sign up for an email service called Riseup, where there's no scanning of messages.There is widespread belief that we have nothing to worry about in terms of surveillance as long as we do nothing wrong. The fact is that few people are aware of just how much we are being watched. In today's world it is nearly impossible to hide from the spies. But why should government, or any other entity, watch everything you do if you have not done anything to warrant such intrusion into privacy? The question is very valid.The author suggests that an Information Protection Agency is probably needed to protect us from the intrusions she discusses. She believes data handlers need to be made accountable for any harm done by use of our data. That sounds like a reasonable proposition. Angwin's book “Dragnet Nation” is an examination of the different ways we are being watched. After reading this book, I never again will quickly dismiss surveillance by the government or anyone else as being in my best interests.
    • 5/5
      In Dragnet Nation, Julia Angwin gives an in-depth look at just how much information about you, your activities, associations, finances, preferences and more, is collected. Sorted. Stored. Sold. While security breaches and the NSA may steal the headlines, Julia’s research has revealed that the notion of ‘privacy’ is fast becoming just that – a notion. Every time you use a computer, credit card, smart phone, register for anything – you get the picture, bits of information about you are being sorted and stored.The only things more chilling than the fact that massive amounts of data about you are being collected, filed and sold, is just how little of this information you can personally access, much less control.A truly unnerving look at today’s surveillance society.
    • 4/5
      In this gripping report, award-winning Julia Angwin and her team of researchers tackle the sizzling topic of privacy—revealing how government, corporate and criminal interests snatch and use our identity data, and why we should be concerned.Angwin‘s search for invisibility travels into the shadows, as the Wall Street journalist attempts to provide confidentiality for her sources. The story of her tenacity reads like a thriller, while making this a resource for the non-technical computer user. The book kicks into gear with Threat Models, using as an example General Petraeus’ misfortunes. Strong password defense is something we may yawn at, and few of us undertake as seriously as it needs to be. A dice-throwing daughter hints at one of Angwin’s solutions—a refreshing bit of expertise. Descriptions of email encryption solutions and applications help enormously, because if you follow her rationale, it becomes clear which alternatives might work for you. Of course your cell-phone can be tracked, even if it’s turned off, and there’s a fascinating battle over the ‘war-driving’ sweeps, scooping up data on the fly. For most of us, we don’t care so much, but if you’re a journalist dealing with nervous sources, it could mean life and death.Angwin covers it all with personal stories, of her own and other victims’ in various shades of discovery. Interestingly, even people she knows well won’t take the trouble to decode encrypted email. It’s not until disaster comes knocking at your own door that you consider privacy a personal issue. If you think you can browse and live anonymously, read this book, and see just how transparent you really are.Compelling, fascinating reading.Helen VanderbergAuthor of “The Domino Deaths”