With all the revelations about the NSA and Snowden Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think is a timely book. Companies like GOOGLE, AMAZON, and YAHOO! routinely collect data on their users. I came away from reading Big Data with the confirmation that privacy is a thing of the past. Smartphones, iPads, computers of all sorts, and any smart device seems to be part of the pervasive NSA data collection operation. Our movements are tracked, our purchases analyzed, and our communications are recorded. The authors point our good uses of Big Data–better science and health studies–but we all know there is a Dark Side to this data collection. GRADE: B+
Table of Contents
1 Now 1
2 More 19
3 Messy 32
4 Correlation 50
5 Datafication 73
6 Value 98
7 Implications 123
8 Risks 150
9 Control 171
10 Next 185
Notes 199
Bibliography 216
Acknowledgments 225
Index 229
I keep telling everyone there is no privacy. Anyone on Facebook or the other “social media” sites should know everything is out there, And it isn’t just the NSA. They did a segment on the local news last night where they had a self-confessed hacker on a folding chair across the street from a Starbucks who was easily able to get into anyone’s tablet or cell phone and see what they were looking at, including those who were doing online banking.
So be careful out there!
Jeff, that is exactly why I don’t do online banking. Accounts get hacked all the time. And your Starbucks story doesn’t surprise me, either. Privacy is a thing of the past.
It’s possible to have privacy, just TURN OFF THE COMPUTER AND SMART PHONE. I don’t use a smart phone, don’t use any social media. I don’t use electronic banking, don’t pay bills on line (good old envelopes and stamps for me). I write checks and don’t use credit cards much.
However since I use email, buy some things online and use the online library system, plus blogging and commenting on blogs, I know I’m vulnerable. What I don’t like is all the surveillance cameras everywhere, which are ostensibly for my safety but are also spying on me, or at least that’s how it feels.
Rick, the NYC Marathon will have 2000 cameras following the runners. Plus mobile cameras. Orwell’s predictions in 1984 are coming true.
My life is an open book. And a pretty dull one. Let ’em look.
When you go to Amazon or other retailers (or for that matter, a hotel chain or airline) and a few minutes later you get an email about a “great offer” or a popup ad or the like you know that they know everything you are doing.
Jeff, I don’t think that’s ever happened to me.