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Summary: The best thing you can do
Review: Read this and then click over to "Transfer-the end of the beginning" by Jerry Furland. This isn't the full monty. That final step that most authors seem reluctant to take can be found in "Transfer". You won't get that information anywhere else. I know. I've looked.
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Summary: The Contents of this Book is Chilling!
Review: Simson Garfinkel has written Database Nation to present a comprehensive assessment of the direction technological advances are taking that have already threatened the privacy of American citizens. Threats to our privacy hit home - they threaten our liberties to voice opposing views, to mount peaceful protests, to buy and sell, to move about freely without big brother watching us, and to live our lives as we please without undue snooping by others. The book serves as an indictment of the Federal Government, law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, private companies, and others who have gained too much control over the lives of people. Garfinkel provides a historical perspective of technological developments and demonstrates how easily we have gone down the road of information gathering. Readers will learn that their privacy is lost when information about them is being collected and sometimes sold, stolen, and put to use by others for a variety of purposes. The contents of this book is chilling. Are threats of crime and terrorism justification for power grabs and the surrendering of our civil liberties? Garfinkel provides case studies to demonstrate the impact technology has had upon our personal freedoms. He provides revelations about various uses and abuses of barcoding, fingerprinting, audio and video surveillance systems, Webcamming, wiretapping, credit reporting, medical record management, confidentiality, and more. Readers will learn how the lives of average American citizens can be turned upside down when errors creep into IRS tax records and credit bureau reports. People are human and humans make errors unintentionally, they steal information, and they deliberately tamper with information for a variety of criminal reasons. Readers would be shocked to learn that they themselves may have been the victims of undue scrutiny! This book should serve as a wake-up call for American citizens to become more knowledgeable about widespread information gathering efforts and the potential for harm that could result from its illegal and unethical use. This is must reading for any person who is concerned about the direction America is taking - and for those persons who don't care but should be more concerned about where we are heading!
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Summary: Who's Watching Me Now?
Review: Simson Garfinkel's Database Nation is a frightening account of how our privacy is being infringed upon by government, industry and certain individuals. It illustrates how ordinary citizens' private information is obtained by individuals or organizations that want to exploit the data to their advantage. The information can be obtained from driver's licenses, credit card purchases, and medical records, just to name a few. The book is insightful and fast-reading. It will prompt you to take control of your life and wonder, "Who is watching me now?" Garfinkel's intent is not to scare his readers, but to inform unsuspecting citizens that an increasing percentage of our daily activities are being captured by databases across the world. Our personal privacy is threatened with the use of fingerprinting and human marking to document and identify individuals. Whereas this means of identification was created to prevent identity theft, solve crimes, and eliminate computer error, some states are now able to sell this information to private businesses because they are part of the public record. Garfinkel's research on this topic is extensive. Not unlike George Orwell's book 1984, we are also under constant surveillance. The stores we shop at, offices we work in, roads we drive on, and establishments we frequent are capturing our video images and placing them in databanks across the nation. Even surveillance satellites are able to capture minute details of a person. Our personal information is a commodity--it's what marketers use to solicit people. Chapter 11: Privacy Now! provides us with examples and ways in which we can fight back as a nation to protect our right to privacy. However, it does not provide individuals with strategies for protection. Humans have come to rely on computers and data processing at the expense of the individual. The problem is that the smallest clerical error can destroy a person's life. Garfinkel compares his book to Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, which planted the seeds for the environmental movement. Likewise, Database Nation sets the stage for the legislation and regulation of privacy in the twenty-first century. Everyone should read this book!
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Summary: Good Premise, Contradictory Solutions
Review: The basic premise of this book is that today's database-centric technology threatens our privacy. A good topic and the book is written in a "joe public" style so you don't need to be a computer geek to follow the stories. However, many of his "solutions" to database induced problems call for more databases; usually government owned and operated - George Orwell would be proud. For example, one case presented has to do with a couple who sold their home and moved elsewhere. The IRS's database "goofed" and started sending notices to the couple at their old address. Because the IRS mailings are stamped "Do not forward" the couple never received them and the IRS eventually put a lien on their house. The couple only found out about this after being rejected for a credit card renewal. The author writes, "A national database [containing data on every individual in the country] could have headed off the excesses of the credit reporting industry." Isn't this what the author is arguing against?
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Summary: Scary!
Review: The contents of this book might make some people overly paranoid. They shouldn't. The purpose of this book is more to inform than to scare, but yet the information that Mr. Garfinkel covers is potentially scary and chilling. Advances in computer technology, satellite surveillance, computer hackers, human error, fraud, security and law enforcement technologies, and even terrorists can have a profound effect on our privacy and our lives when these technologies are abused. And as the book shows, this can easily happen. Rather than be scared of it, it's better to be informed and discover ways to fight this invasion of privacy and Mr. Garfinkel provides solutions to this in the book's final chapter. The book details stories of how marketers can find out your name and address easily, how health insurance agencies can use your medical history against you when consdering whether to accept you for a policy, name theft, and even how terrorists can circumvent even the most stringent security procedures in place. This book impresses upon the reader the effect of widespread information gathering efforts and their abuse potential could directly harm them. If you care at all about your privacy, this a book you should read and glean information on how to stop these potential abuses.
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Summary: Interesting Book but no solutions!
Review: The erossion of privacy in this "Brave New World" of Global capital is a fact. The book gives a good general introduction into this "New World Info". In addition to reading the book you might try protecting your information with the following: Free Secure Private Transactions/Accounts http://www.24karats.cjb.net Private Internet Surfing/Email regardless of ISP http://www.zeroknowledge.com/clickthrough/click.asp?partner_id=10124 Information is great but then what? I hope you find the links helpful. If you need more information feel free to reply/email me
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Summary: Addresses Many Privacy Issues We Face Today!
Review: The first edition of Simson Garfinkel's Database Nation was published last year and it was well received. It won the praise of many people in the computer and Internet industries for its candid portrayal of how advances in computer and Internet technologies, satellite surveillance technology, abuse of database information, computer hacking, human error, fraud, lax security, security and law enforcement technologies, Federal agency policies, and legislation can affect our lives. Consequences are far from flattering. Readers will find alarming the actual experiences of real people documented in this book. Read up on how companies can use computers and Websites to track customer shopping and surfing patterns and make future use of this information for a variety of purposes. Readers will be made aware of how easily transit card use can be tracked. Did you think that grocery store discount card was used only to save you money? Ever wonder what all that information on a customer survey or registration card was used for? This book addresses these and many other privacy issues we face today that have far reaching implications on how we live our lives in this society. Don't take things for granted. Be informed. O'Reilly & Associates has updated this book and packaged it in a convenient paperback edition, making it more affordable and easier to carry around. It deserves your reading. Be sure that your purchase of it will be recorded and tracked by a computer somewhere that is operated by someone who may not necessarily have your own best interests in mind!
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Summary: Gasping Future: How can privacy best be protected
Review: The imminent future is one that will be suprising to those of us still entranced in the status quo. Our system is milliseconds away from the complete onslaught of policies aimed at protecting our privacy. Garfinkel, describes credit cards, medical records, social security, consumer information, employment, surveillance, identification systems, the internet, and telecommunications. The basic picture is one where there will be an increase in protection, or a lack of privacy in the future. I recommend this book to those who felt paranoid during the y2k scare, yet I feel this book is definitely a requirement for anyone who wishes to be a knowledgeable denizen of the civilized world. (student at Bellaire Senior High School)
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Summary: A compelling read - the Silent Spring of "Shadow Watching"
Review: Thirty five years ago Professor Alan Westin of Columbia University, New York, coined the term "data shadow" for the concept that combining different types of records (toll records, credit records, bank records, health records etc) could elicit additional information, a data shadow, which could track the life of an individual. The shadow could show "when the individual entered the highway and where he got off, how many bottles of Scotch or Vermouth he purchased from the liquor store; who paid the rent for the girl in Apartment 4B; who went to the movies between two and four p.m. on a working day at the office; who was at lunch at Luigi's or the Four Seasons on Tuesday September 15th..." (see "Privacy and Freedom" by Alan Westin 1967) In revisiting this sphere in, what will undoubtedly be a key book of the first decade of the new century, Simpson Garfinkel has one key advantage over lawyers like Professor Alan Westin - Simpson Garfinkel is a journalist. And because his professional skill is with words he is able to paint a picture of the very real threat that "data shadows" pose to us in society far better than lawyers whose real skill is in teaching or in the courtroom. In a gripping and thought provoking three hundred pages Garfinkel shows the threat to freedom which are becoming manifest in our Internet enabled world through the variety and volume of databases which are being created beyond the control of the shadowed citizen. But the tone of this book is not hysterical - it is factual. As example is laid upon example the direction humanity is taking is clearly laid out with a solution which is likely to be unpopular in the United States - government regulation. It is one of two weaknesses in his text: Garfinkel sets out the problem with clarity and sincerity but his solution, to this European, appears unworkable since we are already past the stage where the US Government could control data shadowing.. The US Government does not control the Internet world as their attempts to control private use of encryption and the regulation of domain names have shown. Instead the benefits of strong privacy protection need to be built into the next generation of e-business infrastructure - with support for such voluntary measures being given active support by government throughout the world. And the US law of torts needs to be extended by a determined judiciary to cover situations such as that of Nadia Velazquez who three weeks after she won New York's Democratic primary in 1994 received a telephone call from Pete Hamill, a reporter on the New York Post - someone at the St Clair Hospital in New York had faxed Velazquez's medical records to the New York Post. The records detailed the care that Velazquez had received after a suicide attempt. "When I found this information was being published in the newspaper and that I had no power to stop it, I felt violated. I trusted the system and it failed me." As Garfinkel says the debate in "Database Nation" - "is not about the man who wants to watch pornography in complete anonymity over the Internet - it is about the woman who is afraid to use the Internet to organise her community against a proposed toxic dump - she is afraid because the dump's investors are sure to dig through her past if she becomes too much of a nuisance. It is not about people speeding on the nations highways who get automatically generated tickets mailed to them thanks to a computerised speed trap. It is about lovers who will take less joy in walking around city streets or visiting stores because they know they're being photographed by surveillance cameras everywhere they step. It is not about the special prosecutors who leave no stone unturned in their search for corruption or political misdeeds. It is about good, upstanding citizens who are now refusing to enter public service because they do not want a bloodthirsty press rummaging through their old school reports, computerised medical records and e-mail. ..." Garfinkel's only other weakness is that his book does not sufficiently look outside the United States, in particular at World Data Flows and the changes being brought about by Electronic Commerce. One book which is not in his bibliography which should be there is "None of Your Business" by Peter P. Swire and Robert E. Litan (Brooking Institute Press 1998) which looks at the looming threat of Europe's data privacy regime on corporate America. But all this is minor carping. Simson Garfinkel's book is a work of great importance which should be read by anyone concerned about Freedom in the Internet Age. It is a fine exposition and analysis of where we are today and where we are going in the Database Nation. Alistair KELMAN Barrister and Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics Computer Security Research Centre The London School of Economics Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE http://csrc.lse.ac.uk/People/KelmanA/KelmanA.htm
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Summary: Would have been better without the science fiction
Review: This book dashed the high hopes I had for it. There are many very good reasons to be concerned about the ways technology can be used to curtail our civil liberties and constrict our freedoms. I had hoped for a serious discussion laying out the problems, their current state of application and misuse, and some thoughts about how to push back. We do get some of that and to the extent this book is in this scope I like it a great deal (for example, the discussions around eternal copyrights and huge commercial databases gathering everything known about each of us or the sale of drivers license photos to commercial interests). When it is in the middle area of discussing thought crime and brain wiretapping he begins to lose me. It isn't that the issues aren't worthy of discussion, it is simply they way he discusses them has too much of a paranoid science fiction future feel. When he paints the future of conscious machines and whether they will demand civil rights or not, well, I think he spoils this book. That speculative stuff should be in a different book. For me, the inclusion of this material makes it impossible to take seriously the good stuff he does have. The weird apple spoils the barrel kind of thing. It isn't that the book isn't worth reading. It's that the serious stuff is so important that we need to focus on that and not be distracted by paranoid delusions about things that don't even exist. There is plenty to be concerned about in the databases already collected and being sold in commercial markets.
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