Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion

What you must know to protect yourself today The digital technology explosion has blown everything to bits--and the blast has provided new challenges and opportunities. This second edition of  Blown to Bits delivers the knowledge you need to take greater control of your information environment and thrive in a world that's coming whether you like it or not. Straight from internationally respected Harvard/MIT experts, this plain-English bestseller has been fully revised for the latest controversies over social media, “fake news,” big data, cyberthreats, privacy, artificial intelligence and machine learning, self-driving cars, the Internet of Things, and much more. Discover who owns all that data about you—and what they can infer from it Learn to challenge algorithmic decisions See how close you can get to sending truly secure messages Decide whether you really want always-on cameras and microphones Explore the realities of Internet free speech Protect yourself against out-of-control technologies (and the powerful organizations that wield them) You will find clear explanations, practical examples, and real insight into what digital tech means to you--as an individual, and as a citizen.

Table of Contents:
Preface     xvii Chapter 1  Digital Explosion Why Is It Happening, and What Is at Stake?     1 The Explosion of Bits, and Everything Else     4 The Koans of Bits     7 Good and Ill, Promise and Peril     17 Endnotes     19 Chapter 2  Naked in the Sunlight Privacy Lost, Privacy Abandoned     21 1984 Is Here, and We Like It     21 Location, Location, Location     27 Big Brother, Abroad and in the United States     32 The Internet of Things     42 Endnotes     48 Chapter 3  Who Owns Your Privacy? The Commercialization of Personal Data     51 What Kind of Vegetable Are You?     51 Footprints and Fingerprints     57 Fair Information Practice Principles     64 Always On     70 Endnotes     71 Chapter 4  Gatekeepers Who's in Charge Here?     75 Who Controls the Flow of Bits?     75 The Open Internet?     76 Connecting the Dots: Designed for Sharing and Survival     79 The Internet Has No Gatekeepers?     85 Links Gatekeepers: Getting Connected     86 Search Gatekeepers: If You Can't Find It, Does It Exist?     94 Social Gatekeepers: Known by the Company You Keep     104 Endnotes     112 Chapter 5  Secret Bits How Codes Became Unbreakable     117 Going Dark     117 Historical Cryptography     122 Lessons for the Internet Age     131 Secrecy Changes Forever     135 Cryptography Unsettled     147 Endnotes     148 Chapter 6  Balance Toppled Who Owns the Bits?     153 Stealing Music     153 Automated Crimes, Automated Justice     155 The Peer-to-Peer Upheaval     160 No Commercial Skipping     167 Authorized Use Only     168 Forbidden Technology     172 Copyright Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance     177 The Limits of Property     183 Endnotes     187 Chapter 7  You Can't Say That on the Internet Guarding the Frontiers of Digital Expression     193 Child Sex Trafficking Goes Digital     193 Publisher or Distributor?     198 Protecting Good Samaritans—and a Few Bad Ones     205 Digital Protection, Digital Censorship, and Self-Censorship     215 What About Social Media?     219 Takedowns     221 Endnotes     222 Chapter 8  Bits in the Air Old Metaphors, New Technologies, and Free Speech     227 Censoring the Candidate     227 How Broadcasting Became Regulated     228 The Path to Spectrum Deregulation     241 The Most Beautiful Inventor in the World     245 What Does the Future Hold for Radio?     255 Endnotes     261 Chapter 9  The Next Frontier AI and the Bits World of the Future     265 Thrown Under a Jaywalking Bus     266 What's Intelligent About Artificial Intelligence?     267 Machine Learning: I'll Figure It Out     268 Algorithmic Decisions: I Thought Only People Could Do That     273 What's Next     277 Bits Lighting Up the World     282 A Few Bits in Conclusion     287 Endnotes     288 Index     293