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Title:
Privacy on the Line
Author:
Whitfield Diffy&Susan Landau
ISBN:
0 262 54100 9
Publisher:
MIT Press
Pages:
345pp
Price:
£10-50
Reviewer:
Francis Glassborow
Subject:
security
Appeared in:
12-1
Issues of privacy are amongst the hottest topics of the 1990's and
there is every reason to believe that they will continue well into
the next century. One of the problems is that we assume that we
have a degree of privacy in our everyday lives that is probably not
justified by the facts. In many (but by no means all) countries a
degree of privacy is enshrined in law. Reading mail in transit,
bugging peoples telephones etc. is strictly constrained in law but
probably to a smaller extent than we like to think. We like to
think that our governments invasion of our privacy is strongly
restricted. In fact they regularly invade our privacy, and we
frequently actively support such invasions (think how willing many
people support CCTV, granted this is in public places, but it still
invades our privacy).
In this book the authors not only explore the political and legal
aspects of electronic privacy but also consider the social
implications. Though the book is written from the perspective of
the USA much of it is relevant elsewhere.
Governments have always invaded the privacy of their citizens but in
the past these invasions have been constrained by logistics. It is
simply not possible to covertly read every citizen's mail.
Collating data from tax returns, bank accounts etc. has only been
possible on a small scale. What has protected the privacy of most
has been the sheer impossibility of comprehensive data collation for
an entire population. This is no longer the case.
We all have opinions (not always consistent) on the subject matter
of this book. This book will help you base those opinions on a
little substance including the history of how we got where we are
today. If the subject interests you, you will find this book a
thoughtful and readable presentation.