Reviews
Future Crimes: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle for Our Connected World by Marc Goodman
amanda_'s review against another edition
2.0
My update after reading 5 pages: "This book should've been 200 pages shorter, shouldn't it?" I stand by my assessment.
Future crimes isn't what I'd call a bad book by any means; it's well researched - (although I dislike that instead of footnotes the author has a list at the end of the book where the references are to page numbers) - and it's not badly written per se. The author tells the stories of various crimes, small but more often big ones. He explains what the crimes are and more importantly why they are possible to commit. In this he also shows that while not always a crime, corporations and governments sometimes deal in what borders on being illegal. Furthermore, in the case of the people committing these cyber crimes, the author explains the hierarchy of the organizations, and that they have a lot in common with regular companies in terms of structure.
So where did we go wrong? Well, have you seen all these trees?
That's where this goes wrong. While Goodman has all this knowledge about the crimes he describes, it's hard to believe it was necessary to go into detail on each and every one. A classic example of 'can't see the forest for all the trees'. For one thing, the first half (or at least what felt like it) is him showing us various crimes committed. While interesting, sure, they are hardly "future crimes". In fact, they have already been committed. After this he gets into the structure of Crime Inc. which isn't all that interesting or necessary, if you ask me. Then we might begin talking about future crimes, but it's not really that either; it's about the security risks of being connected, and how using fingerprints might not be the best way to lock your phone or tablet (because hey, the fingerprint is translated into 1s and 0s, just like any other password, the difference is you can't change your fingerprint once someone cracks that code). With this Goodman continues to the Internet of Things in which we connect more and more of our devices to the internet - like who WOULDN'T connect their electronic candles to the internet if they could.
No, I'm not a technophobe. And yes, Goodman does make some good points. Sure, I'd say more people need to learn that the internet isn't a neutral playing ground or that algorithms decide what google search result they get or that there are major risks that comes with living in a connected world. But Goodman's presentation of the subject is not the one I'd choose or recommend. My worry is that people will be turned off by reading a number of stories of how easy it is to commit a crime on the internet, and give up before Goodman gets around to talking about security and (a little) about the future. There's a short chapter at the end of the book with tips for the average internet user that are sound and more people should be aware of. In the end though, I still believe the book should've been shorter and more focused on the forest and less on the trees.
Future crimes isn't what I'd call a bad book by any means; it's well researched - (although I dislike that instead of footnotes the author has a list at the end of the book where the references are to page numbers) - and it's not badly written per se. The author tells the stories of various crimes, small but more often big ones. He explains what the crimes are and more importantly why they are possible to commit. In this he also shows that while not always a crime, corporations and governments sometimes deal in what borders on being illegal. Furthermore, in the case of the people committing these cyber crimes, the author explains the hierarchy of the organizations, and that they have a lot in common with regular companies in terms of structure.
So where did we go wrong? Well, have you seen all these trees?
That's where this goes wrong. While Goodman has all this knowledge about the crimes he describes, it's hard to believe it was necessary to go into detail on each and every one. A classic example of 'can't see the forest for all the trees'. For one thing, the first half (or at least what felt like it) is him showing us various crimes committed. While interesting, sure, they are hardly "future crimes". In fact, they have already been committed. After this he gets into the structure of Crime Inc. which isn't all that interesting or necessary, if you ask me. Then we might begin talking about future crimes, but it's not really that either; it's about the security risks of being connected, and how using fingerprints might not be the best way to lock your phone or tablet (because hey, the fingerprint is translated into 1s and 0s, just like any other password, the difference is you can't change your fingerprint once someone cracks that code). With this Goodman continues to the Internet of Things in which we connect more and more of our devices to the internet - like who WOULDN'T connect their electronic candles to the internet if they could.
No, I'm not a technophobe. And yes, Goodman does make some good points. Sure, I'd say more people need to learn that the internet isn't a neutral playing ground or that algorithms decide what google search result they get or that there are major risks that comes with living in a connected world. But Goodman's presentation of the subject is not the one I'd choose or recommend. My worry is that people will be turned off by reading a number of stories of how easy it is to commit a crime on the internet, and give up before Goodman gets around to talking about security and (a little) about the future. There's a short chapter at the end of the book with tips for the average internet user that are sound and more people should be aware of. In the end though, I still believe the book should've been shorter and more focused on the forest and less on the trees.
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