Connect with the Libraries
Have an idea for Subject of the Month?
October 2017
Selector: Alexandra Sarkozy
The recent Equifax breach that potentially exposed over 143 million 146 million Americans to identity theft and credit fraud has caused many to give online privacy and security measures a second look. As smartphones, tablets, credit and debit cards, and social media move from being optional to required features of participating in commercial and civic society, it's important to understand what personal information is being broadcast by you (on Facebook and Twitter) and your devices, and how it is being collected and used by governments, marketers, data brokers (like Equifax) and maybe hackers. Even cats can be potential password sniffers. October is Cybersecurity Month, and to celebrate, we've put together this guide of resources where you can inform yourself about online privacy and security, and take steps to protect yourself.
This guide is intended to open and broaden conversations about internet culture, security, privacy, and intellectual freedom, and to educate and empower internet users everywhere.
ebooks October 2017
Technologies of Freedom by Call Number: ebookISBN: 9780674872332Publication Date: 1984-01-01In a masterly synthesis of history, law, and technology, Pool analyzes the confrontation between the regulators of the new communications technology and the First Amendment. (Technology)
Facebook Nation by Call Number: ebookISBN: 9781493917396Publication Date: 2014-10-17Facebook's psychological experiments and Edward Snowden's NSA leaks epitomize a world of increasing information awareness in the social media ecosystem. With over a billion monthly active users, Facebook as a nation is overtaking China as the largest country in the world. President Barack Obama, in his 2011 State of the Union Address, called America "the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers" and "of Google and Facebook." U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel opines that America has become a "Facebook nation" that demands increased transparency and interactivity from the federal government. Ubiquitous social networks such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and YouTube are creating the technologies, infrastructures, and big data necessary for Total Information Awareness - a controversial surveillance program proposed by DARPA after the 9/11 attacks. NSA's secret PRISM program has reinvigorated WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's accusation that "Facebook is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once said, "We exist at the intersection of technology and social issues." This book offers discourse and practical advice on the privacy issue in the age of big data, business intelligence in social media, e-government and e-activism, as well as personal total information awareness. This expanded edition also includes insights from Wikipedian Emily Temple-Wood and Facebook ROI experts Dennis Yu and Alex Houg.
10 Don'ts on Your Digital Devices by ISBN: 9781484203682Publication Date: 2014-10-20In nontechnical language and engaging style, 10 Don'ts on Your Digital Devices explains to non-techie users of PCs and handheld devices exactly what to do and what not to do to protect their digital data from security and privacy threats at home, at work, and on the road. These include chronic threats such as malware and phishing attacks and emerging threats that exploit cloud‐based storage and mobile apps. It's a wonderful thing to be able to use any of your cloud-synced assortment of desktop, portable, mobile, and wearable computing devices to work from home, shop at work, pay in a store, do your banking from a coffee shop, submit your tax returns from the airport, or post your selfies from the Oscars. But with this new world of connectivity and convenience comes a host of new perils for the lazy, the greedy, the unwary, and the ignorant. The 10 Don'ts can't do much for the lazy and the greedy, but they can save the unwary and the ignorant a world of trouble. 10 Don'ts employs personal anecdotes and major news stories to illustrate what can--and all too often does--happen when users are careless with their devices and data. Each chapter describes a common type of blunder (one of the 10 Don'ts), reveals how it opens a particular port of entry to predatory incursions and privacy invasions, and details all the unpleasant consequences that may come from doing a Don't. The chapter then shows you how to diagnose and fix the resulting problems, how to undo or mitigate their costs, and how to protect against repetitions with specific software defenses and behavioral changes. Through ten vignettes told in accessible language and illustrated with helpful screenshots, 10 Don'ts teaches non-technical readers ten key lessons for protecting your digital security and privacy with the same care you reflexively give to your physical security and privacy, so that you don't get phished, give up your password, get lost in the cloud, look for a free lunch, do secure things from insecure places, let the snoops in, be careless when going mobile, use dinosaurs, or forget the physical--in short, so that you don't trust anyone over...anything. Non-techie readers are not unsophisticated readers. They spend much of their waking lives on their devices and are bombarded with and alarmed by news stories of unimaginably huge data breaches, unimaginably sophisticated "advanced persistent threat" activities by criminal organizations and hostile nation-states, and unimaginably intrusive clandestine mass electronic surveillance and data mining sweeps by corporations, data brokers, and the various intelligence and law enforcement arms of our own governments. The authors lift the veil on these shadowy realms, show how the little guy is affected, and what individuals can do to shield themselves from big predators and snoops.
The Basics of Cyber Safety by Call Number: ebookISBN: 9780124166509Publication Date: 2016-09-11The Basics of Cyber Safety: Computer and Mobile Device Safety Made Easy presents modern tactics on how to secure computer and mobile devices, including what behaviors are safe while surfing, searching, and interacting with others in the virtual world. The book's author, Professor John Sammons, who teaches information security at Marshall University, introduces readers to the basic concepts of protecting their computer, mobile devices, and data during a time that is described as the most connected in history. This timely resource provides useful information for readers who know very little about the basic principles of keeping the devices they are connected to-or themselves-secure while online. In addition, the text discusses, in a non-technical way, the cost of connectedness to your privacy, and what you can do to it, including how to avoid all kinds of viruses, malware, cybercrime, and identity theft. Final sections provide the latest information on safe computing in the workplace and at school, and give parents steps they can take to keep young kids and teens safe online. Provides the most straightforward and up-to-date guide to cyber safety for anyone who ventures online for work, school, or personal use Includes real world examples that demonstrate how cyber criminals commit their crimes, and what users can do to keep their data safe
Consent of the Networked by Call Number: ebookISBN: 9780465024421Publication Date: 2012-01-31The Internet was going to liberate us, but in truth it has not. For every story about the web's empowering role in events such as the Arab Spring, there are many more about the quiet corrosion of civil liberties by companies and governments using the same digital technologies we have come to depend upon. Sudden changes in Facebook's features and privacy settings have exposed identities of protestors to police in Egypt and Iran. Apple removes politically controversial apps at the behest of governments as well as for its own commercial reasons. Dozens of Western companies sell surveillance technology to dictatorships around the world. Google struggles with censorship demands from governments in a range of countries--many of them democracies--as well as mounting public concern over the vast quantities of information it collects about its users. In Consent of the Networked, journalist and Internet policy specialist Rebecca MacKinnon argues that it is time to fight for our rights before they are sold, legislated, programmed, and engineered away. Every day, the corporate sovereigns of cyberspace make decisions that affect our physical freedom--but without our consent. Yet the traditional solution to unaccountable corporate behavior--government regulation--cannot stop the abuse of digital power on its own, and sometimes even contributes to it. A clarion call to action, Consent of the Networked shows that it is time to stop arguing over whether the Internet empowers people, and address the urgent question of how technology should be governed to support the rights and liberties of users around the world.
Imagining the Internet by Call Number: ebookISBN: 0199697043Publication Date: 2012-09-08This book is an impressive survey of our collective and cumulative understanding of the evolution of digital communication systems and the Internet. Whilst the information societies of the twenty-first century will develop ever more sophisticated technologies, the Internet is now a familiarand pervasive part of the world in which we live, work, and communicate. As such it is important to take stock of some fundamental questions - whether, for example, it contributes to progress, social cohesion, democracy, and growth - and at the same time to review the rich and varied theories andperspectives developed by thinkers in a range of disciplines over the last fifty years or more.In this remarkably comprehensive but concise and useful book, Robin Mansell summarizes key debates, and reviews the contributions of major thinkers in communication systems, economics, politics, sociology, psychology, and systems theory - from Norbert Wiener to Brian Arthur and Manuel Castells, andfrom Gregory Bateson to William Davidow and Sherry Turkle. This is an interdisciplinary and critical analysis of the way we experience the Internet in front of the screen, and of the developments behind the screen, all of which have implications for privacy ,security, intellectual property rights,and the overall governance of the Internet. The author presents fairly the ideas of the celebrants and the sceptics, and reminds us of the continuing need for careful, critical, and informed analysis of the paradoxes and challenges of the Internet, offering her own views on how we might move to greater empowerment, and suggesting policymeasures and governance approaches that go beyond those commonly debated. This concise book will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the challenges the Internet presents in the twenty-first century, and the debates and research that can inform that understanding.
The Private Security State? by Call Number: ebookISBN: 9788763003322Publication Date: 2015-03-25The last decade has witnessed the emergence of a surveillance-industrial complex, as securitized data about customers begins to flow between the private sector and government. Governments and their security agencies are mandating businesses transfer data about their customers in a number of key industrial sectors. Organizations in financial services, travel, and, latterly, communications, now provide the very data, which enable decisions about risk and security deployment to be made. This book revolves around case studies of two surveillance regimes: the Anti-Money Laundering / Counter Terror Financing regulations in retail financial services and the e-Borders regulations in the retail travel industry. The book examines how these new government demands for information intertwine with the activities of private sector organizations, as their systems, processes, customers, and employees are integrated into national security frameworks. Through detailed empirical analysis, it questions how private sector organizations achieve compliance with demands for customer data. While others have argued that diffused security arrangements de-politicizes it, the book shows that national security becomes re-politicized as it re-surfaces in the politics of production within the business enterprise. [Subject: Security Studies, Counter-Terrorism, Business, Politics, Data Technology]
Terms of Service by Call Number: HM 851 .S554 2015ISBN: 9780062282460Publication Date: 2015-03-17Social networking has grown into a staple of modern society, but its continued evolution is becoming increasingly detrimental to our lives. Shifts in communication and privacy are affecting us more than we realize or understand. Terms of Service crystalizes this current moment in technology and contemplates its implications: the identity-validating pleasures and perils of online visibility; our newly adopted view of daily life through the lens of what is share-worthy; and the surveillance state operated by social media platforms--Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others--to mine our personal data for advertising revenue, an invasion of our lives that is as pervasive as government spying. Jacob Silverman calls for social media users to take back ownership of their digital selves from the Silicon Valley corporations who claim to know what's best for them. Integrating politics, sociology, national security, pop culture, and technology, he reveals the surprising conformity at the heart of Internet culture--explaining how social media companies engineer their products to encourage shallow engagement and discourage dissent. Reflecting on the collapsed barriers between our private and public lives, Silverman brings into focus the inner conflict we feel when deciding what to share and what to "like," and explains how we can take the steps we need to free ourselves from its grip.
Dragnet Nation by Call Number: JC 596 .A5 2015ISBN: 9781250060860Publication Date: 2015-02-10Welcome to life in a society of ubiquitous surveillance, tracking and data mining... Angwin, a Wall Street Journal reporter who along with her colleagues has produced essential reporting on privacy and security ... aims to illuminate the costs of living with systems that track nearly everything we do, think or say... [and] she performs a herculean effort to regain her privacy... A useful, well-reported study." - The Los Angeles Times "I read Julia Angwin''s new book Dragnet Nation ... I heartily recommend it to you... [The book is an] antidote to Big Brother''s big chill." - Bill Moyers "A deeply researched book that is completely of the moment. Dragnet Nation moves right to the top of the list of books we should all read about privacy ." - Salon
Web Resources October 2017
- Justice Department Demands Names of Thousands Who Liked Anti-Trump Facebook Page"The Justice Department has obtained three warrants to search the Facebook accounts of people associated with protests of Donald Trump’s inauguration and an anti-Trump Facebook page they used to organize the demonstrations. In addition to private lists of people who planned to attend Facebook events created by the page, the searches would include the names of an estimated 6,000 people who simply “liked” it during a three-month period covered by the warrant."
- If You Have Nothing to Hide, Why Does Privacy MatterRichards, N. M. (2013). The dangers of surveillance. Harvard Law Review, 126(7), 1934-1965.
Outlines why the right to privacy is important to individuals. - ProPublica: Why Online Tracking is Getting Creepier"Currently, many companies track where users go on the Web—often through cookies—in order to display customized ads. That's why if you look at a pair of shoes on one site, ads for those shoes may follow you around the Web.
But online marketers are increasingly seeking to track users offline, as well, by collecting data about people's offline habits—such as recent purchases, where you live, how many kids you have, and what kind of car you drive." - ProPublica Series on Algorithmic InjusticeMuch of the data collected on consumers is fed into algorithms that determine everything from credit scores to car insurance rates to prices displayed to us in online advertisements. ProPublica investigates the class, race, and gender bias inherent in these algorithms.
- Tinder Returns 800 Pages of Data on Individual UserGuardian reporter Judith Duportail requested her Tinder profile data using EU data protection laws. She received 800 pages of information about her online behavior.
- Schnier on Security BlogBruce Schnier is Chief Technology Officer of IBM Resilient, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center, and a board member of EFF. He has blogged on security issues since 2004.
- On LAPD's Palantir System: Big Data, Surveillance, Policing, and InequalityBrayne, S. (2017). Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing. American Sociological Review, 82(5), 977-1008.
Link is to full text. - Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)"EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, DC. EPIC was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic values in the information age. EPIC pursues a wide range of program activities including policy research, public education, conferences, litigation, publications, and advocacy. EPIC routinely files amicus briefs in federal courts, pursues open government cases, defends consumer privacy, organizes conferences for NGOs, and speaks before Congress and judicial organizations about emerging privacy and civil liberties issues."
- Berkman Klein Center for Internet and SocietyResearch institute that investigates the impact of the internet on law and policy, and vice versa.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation"The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development."
- FTC Report "Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Action"Federal Trade Commission Report that recommends federal oversight of the data broker industry, which collects information about consumers (through mobile devices, social media, web browsing, and GPS data) without their knowledge. Read it and be aware of what's happening.
- WSU Libraries Intellectual Freedom Research GuideLinks to resources related to freedom of speech, privacy, and how libraries work to protect your right to read and think in their spaces.
- Data and Society Report: Privacy, Security, and Digital Inequality, by Mary Madden"...the first in-depth analysis of the privacy and security experiences of low-socioeconomic-status populations in the United States.
Supported by the Digital Trust Foundation, the report finds that most of those living in U.S. households with annual incomes of less than $20,000 per year are acutely aware of a range of digital privacy harms, but many say it would be difficult to access the tools and strategies that could help them protect their personal information online. The report provides additional insights about mobile device use and demand for digital privacy and security training."
Steps You Can Take: Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, are encrypted, secure communications channels that protect internet traffic from hackers and snoops. VPN services differ in levels of encryption, speed, security, and reliability- if you're in serious need of political protection, a VPN is not going to be enough to help you. If you are looking for a safer way to utilize a wifi connection in a cafe or airport, a VPN is what you're looking for.
More about what VPNs are and what they can do: What is a VPN?
More discussion on when to use a VPN: A VPN can protect your online privacy. But there's a catch.
Post-FCC Privacy Rules, Should You VPN?
Here are some VPN options and rankings. Some VPNs are free, some are paid, some offer tiers of service based on price.
- Wayne State University VPNWSU Computing provides a free VPN service to WSU students, faculty, and staff.
- Tor ProjectTor is a free software and open network project designed to protect privacy. Free browser, and apps available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android.
Steps You Can Take: Tracker-Blocking Browser Plugins and Privacy Apps
Third-party trackers from online marketers and advertising firms track and record users' browsing history. They then use this history of webpage viewing to determine personal interests, and then target advertising at individuals. You can block these trackers with the following browser plugins, and protect your data further with additional apps.
EFF Surveillance Self-Defense Starter Kit
Tutorials, overviews, tools, and information about strong passwords, encryption, social media tracking, mobile devices, and more. Great place to quickly understand what's at stake, assess your risk, and take steps to protect yourself.
Privacy Badger is a browser plugin for both Firefox and Chrome that blocks third-party advertising trackers. Created and maintained by the privacy advocacy nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Free.
Browser plugin for Chrome, also from EFF. Converts HTTP connections to encrypted HTTPS, protecting your communications from hackers, sniffers, and snoops. Free.
Ghostery is another browser plugin that blocks advertising and social media trackers, as well as other third-party cookies and trackers from websites. Ghostery also makes a private browser for both iOS and Android devices. Free.
Blocks trackers and malware across browsers and available for entire devices. Free version for a single browser; paid options and VPN services for full devices. Free and paid versions.
App for iOS and Android devices from Whisper Systems, Inc. Signal encrypts voice and text conversations. Free.
SudoApp allows you to create special-purpose avatars with usable email addresses and phone numbers. Use avatars instead of giving out your private email and phone number to maintain privacy on the web. Currently only for iOS devices, but web and Android versions under development. Free and paid versions.
Create virtual credit cards that obscure your name and billing details so you can shop online privately. Available on web and for Apple and Android devices. Free.
Search engine alternative to Google. Duck Duck Go does not track searches, nor does it sell information about search behavior to advertisers. Available as a browser plugin. Free.
Encrypted, secure alternative to Evernote notetaking app. Available for OSx, Windows, Linux, and Android (iOS coming soon). Free and paid versions.
Individual and enterprise encrypted cloud storage and device backup. Paid version only.
Steps You Can Take: Strong Passwords
Strong passwords and two-factor authentication are techniques that work to secure your online profiles, banking information, and other online information stored and accessed via the internet. Below are some apps and resources that help you keep your login information safe.
- KeePassDownloadable open source software that allows you to save passwords locally rather than in the cloud. Free.
- LastPass password managerLastPass is a cross-browser and cross-device password manager. Lastpass saves and encrypts all your logins in a central vault; all you have to remember is your LastPass password. Free.