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.
Tag: USA
Democracies in time
Russian authorities are trying hard to foil Swedish plans to join NATO, and try to vie “experts” to argue for the sake of Russia. I still assert democracies should help Russia lose on the battlefield. No one should even consided abandoning Ukraine. You stand by your promise, by your friends.
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: Chip war
Once every couple of years (or months) you come across a topic you’ve never really been interested in, or perhaps haven’t even heard of. Or it’s a topic in the back of your head, that you’ve never been able to verbalize properly before. Suddenly it falls within scope and it is the only thing your mind is focused on for some time. After listening to The Ezra Klein Show with Chris Miller about his book Chip war, this has been the case for me.
Book review: How to lose the information war
Nina Jankowicz’s second book is focused on Central and Eastern Europe and, as the title implies, information warfare, directed by Russia.
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.
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.
State of the world after one week of war in Ukraine (Revised May 5th)
It’s been one week of war now. One week of immense sorrow. One week of reading more news than ever before in such a short time: Zelensky, Putin, Kiev, Kharkiv, Cherson, Territorial Defense Unit/Brigade, women signing up for frontline duty – the list in my dreams and nightmares go on and on.