Begin to consider | No Place to Hide

Very thorough | No Place to Hide | Robert O'Harrow

books:


	• No Place to Hide Robert O'Harrow Free Press, 2006 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 32 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Gives you an overview of the current situation

Robert O'Harrow writes about what data can be collected on individuals, who collects it and who uses it. In a nutshell, data is collected by the various parts of the government (CIA, NSA, etc) and private businesses. Some of the private businesses sell the collected data further, and some of this is also used by law enforcement (including PIs and 'bounty hunters'). This latter issue can be of concern if you think you might one day have to deal with an disgruntled ex-spouse, ex-employee (or a current employees ex-) or have a relative who might be searched by bounty hunters.

If you have an understanding of the technical aspects of what can be done with information technology, the book probably would not surprise you much at all. However, you might still find it interesting (I know I did) for providing a clearer picture of the extent of data gathering. The only drawback with the book is that, overall, it can be a bit tedious to read.

In any case this book is a good 'companion' to a book of privacy called "How to be invisible" by J.J. Luna. Together with the information in Luna's book, it helps provide an answer to the question "why should I need to be invisible?"

While Robert O'Harrow does not write about what you can do to minimize the data gathered about you, he helps provide a motivation for you to take necessary steps so that that data can not be used to connect your actual name with your actual residence. How to do this (legally) is discussed in J.J. Luna's book.

How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition)

[Later addition: I happened to find a website that sells a DVD titled "Privacy is dead", containing a presentation by Steven Rambam (a P.I.). Steven's presentation is about the amount of information available on each person in the U.S. and how easily this can be retrieved. I have not viewed the DVD so I do not know how 'good' it is, but if you are interested, you can find it with a search engine. Recommendation: check the Wikipedia article on the speaker before buying the DVD.]

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Begin to consider

The title says it all: you cannot remain anonymous or hidden any more, anyone with the will or intent can find out a wealth of information about you, and resistance is futile. O'Harrow goes through a laundry list of means that are utilized to capture and share information about you, all without your knowledge or consent. There are companies that exist solely for the purpose of gathering and selling personal information. That's capitalism at work for you (or is it against you?). A fact of life in the information age is that things that make life much easier and simpler for us are also the primary sources for diminishing our privacy. This double-edged sword really does cut both ways, since it is a price we pay for ease, convenience and protection. The irony is that we have struggled and fought for our freedom, yet are not able to survive today without the protections afforded by these measures. It is frightening to think that we can be tracked by satellite when we use GPS in our cars or when we use a credit card at a store. Our grocers know our buying habits because we use their store's discount cards in order to save ourselves money. Phone records indicate whom we called and at what time. Just try to live today without credit cards or a phone! It is difficult to ascertain O'Harrow's purpose for writing this book because he leaves many conclusions to us. Does he take some perverse pleasure in making us feel powerless? Or perhaps he is alerting us to information collecting methods so that we take precautionary measures? We can take precautions, yet if our identity is stolen, laws are designed to protect credit card companies, not us. Only as a majority would we be able to reverse this trend and return to anonymity, though what would be the repercussions of this? Whatever the purpose for the book, it is reasonably informative and at the very least should spur us to contemplate this topical and pervasive issue.

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Very thorough

This book is the result of a very thorough and detailed investigation. Some of the chapters are more exciting than you'd expect from a book like this. For some other chapters you need a little interest in politics.

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Must read

This is a must read for anyone with any concern for personal privacy

Very good

Nutshell review - The book covers the many ways in which we are being watched, tracked, have data collected about us and the organizations which use that data for both "good" and bad. It also highlights the dangers of incorrect data being collected and the difficulties of correcting those errors. Perhaps most frighteningly is how much data is actually being collected 24/7, correlated with still other databases and used for who knows what purpose. If you are concerned about privacy issues then this is must reading.

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In No Place to Hide, award-winning Washington Post reporter Robert O'Harrow, Jr., pulls back the curtain on an unsettling trend: the emergence of a data-driven surveillance society intent on giving us the conveniences and services we crave, like cell phones, discount cards, and electronic toll passes, while watching us more closely than ever before. He shows that since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, the information industry giants have been enlisted as private intelligence services for homeland security. And at a time when companies routinely collect billions of details about nearly every American adult, No Place to Hide shines a bright light on the sorry state of information security, revealing how people can lose control of their privacy and identities at any moment.

Now with a new afterword that details the latest security breaches and the government's failing efforts to stop them, O'Harrow shows us that, in this new world of high-tech domestic intelligence, there is literally no place to hide.

As O'Harrow writes, "This book is all about you and your personal information -- and the story isn't pretty."

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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