“How to slow down in a world that is speeding up?” Johann Hari writes in the book Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again. He outlines twelve problems for our individual and collective attention span, ability to focus.
Tag: Personal data
Book review: Fancy Bear Goes Phishing
As soon as I noticed a book published with this savvy title this year, I knew I had to read it: Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in five Extraordinary Hacks. In his youth, Scott J. Shapiro spent much time with computers, but later chose a career in philosophy and law. When writing about cyberwar, he returned to computers, re-learning programming and computer science. Attempting to answer the simple questions of why the Internet is insecure, how do hackers exploit insecurity and how they can be prevented, or at least decreased in numbers, Shapiro takes us on a journey with five stops, from the late 1980’s to the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the Minecraft wars.
Book review: Weapons of math destruction
Cathy O’Neil is a computer scientist and mathematician, who left the academic life for the financial industry in the early 2000’s, working with computers, for companies making lots of money. There she discovered what is now called Big Data and later became troubled by the purposes and intents of algorithms. After realising the even more troublesome side effects on society, she thus wrote this book, with the secondary title How Big Data increases inequality and threatens democracy.
Book review: Click here to kill everybody
For those who don’t know of Bruce Schneier, he’s one of the world’s most famous and prominent cybersecurity experts. If there’s one person you’d like to guide you and hold your hand while in need, Schneier is the one. This book is about basics of cybersecurity, not the technical aspects, but rather about security on the Internet and the Internet+, the interconnected world of the Internet of things.
Book review: Reset
The director of the famous Citizen Lab has written about the state of the (tech) world and solutions to the crisis of democracy and tech. If there’s one book to rule them all, this is the one.
Two sides of Cambridge Analytica
Chris Wylie is a self-taught computer guy with a nack for analyzing data, especially electoral data from Canada, England and the US. Brittany Kaiser is devoted to human rights and worked for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. Both end up working for the notorious Cambridge Analytica.
Book review: Computational propaganda
Oxford Internet Institute is a go-to-zone whenever I need some knowledge about cyberspace, cybersecurity, Internet research or many other topics. It’s a fascinating interdisciplinary institute, blending what is called social data science, data science with social science. The book comprises case studies of digital disinformation efforts (a main focus is certain types of bots) in nine countries, ranging from Canada and Poland to Russia and, naturally, Ukraine.
Book review: The perfect police state
This could well be a follow-up to Beijmo’s De kan inte stoppa oss. Instead of Syria as the main stage, the story and its focus are China. Writer Geoffrey Cain presents himself early as the journalist he is, when travelling Xinjiang in western China, though the main character in the narrative is Maysem, an Uighur who has escaped Xinjiang.
Reasons and responsibilites to protect personal data
I wrote about personal data in two strategies, namely the so-called Digitalization strategy and the National strategy for cyber security. Who is responsible for protecting personal data and what are the reasons to protect personal data? Is there a gender perspective present?
Idea accepted
After many days of straying like a lost dog around the different ideas, I settled on one idea.