Privacy Defended: Protecting Yourself Online

Publisher: Que; 1st edition
Language: English
ISBN: 078972605X
Paperback: 640 pages
Data: February 8, 2002
Format: CHM
Description: Lots of books have to do with computer and network security, which is to say they explain how to protect your files and other resources from malicious characters. Privacy Defended has more to do with protecting Internet users from themselves. The team of authors makes it clear that Internet entities (mainly commercial interests, though miscellaneous troublemakers fall into this category as well) have tremendous interest in finding out as many details as possible about you. This book goes into considerable depth on the technologies (such as browser cookies) and social engineering techniques (such as contests whose entry forms solicit your e-mail address) that have evolved to circumvent the inherently anonymous nature of the Internet.
Internet users willing to sit down and have a serious look at what this book has to say will be rewarded with a solid understanding of the implications of nearly everything they do online. Readers are, for instance, clued in to the undercover behavior of Netscape SmartDownload (early versions of the software reported your identity and the files you downloaded to a central server) and made to wonder about what other free utilities might be doing. Once they've instilled a bit of paranoia in their readers, the authors offer advice on securing typical home computers (and networks of them) against attack. They compare and contrast commercial products for this purpose, and go into helpful detail on the characteristic risks of cable modems and other broadband links.

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