Future Crimes: How Our Radical Dependence on Technology Threatens Us All - Hardcover

Goodman, Marc

3.93

4,262 ratings by Goodreads

9780385682565: Future Crimes: How Our Radical Dependence on Technology Threatens Us All

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385682565 ISBN 13: 9780385682565

Publisher: Doubleday Canada, 2015

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From one of the world's leading authorities on global security, Future Crimes takes readers deep into the digital underground to illuminate the alarming ways criminals, corporations, and even countries are using new and emerging technologies against you—and how this makes everyone more vulnerable than you ever thought possible.

Technological advances have benefited our world in immeasurable ways—but there is an ominous flip side. Criminals are often the earliest, and most innovative, adopters of technology, and modern times have lead to modern crimes. Today's criminals are stealing identities, draining online bank accounts and wiping out computer servers. It's disturbingly easy to activate baby monitors to spy on families, pacemakers can be hacked to deliver a lethal jolt of electricity, and thieves are analyzing your social media in order to determine the best time for a home invasion. Meanwhile, 3D printers produce AK-47s, terrorists can download the recipe for the Ebola virus, and drug cartels are building drones. This is just the beginning of the tsunami of technological threats coming our way. In Future Crimes, Marc Goodman rips opens his database of hundreds of real cases to give us front-row access to these impending perils. Reading like a sci-fi thriller, but based in startling fact, Future Crimes raises tough questions about the expanding role of technology in our lives. Future Crimes is a call to action for better security measures worldwide, but most importantly, it will empower readers to protect themselves against looming technological threats—before it's too late.

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Review:

An Amazon Best Book of the Month for March 2015: It won't surprise many people to read that computers, networks, and personal information are under constant attack. Most of us install a commonly available anti-virus program, mind our clicks, and hope for the best. More than that seems like work, and stories of data theft have become so ubiquitous that a certain amount of desensitization is probably inevitable. Well, Goodman's book should take care of that. When your C.V. includes titles like "futurist-in-residence with the FBI," you've seen who's creeping through those internet pipes, and it's harrowing; his litany of cyber criminals and their multitudinous misdeeds are often shocking in their inventiveness and audacity, and Goodman brings the nightmares one after another at an almost breathless pace. But not all is hopeless--Goodman aims to educate, offering from high-level policy to practical layman's advice for buttoning down your own data. Despite the scare factor, it's a fun, fast, and fascinating 400 pages. My only quibble is with the title, which implies a coming threat. The threat is here, and the future is now. --Jon Foro

About the Author:

MARC GOODMAN has spent a career in law enforcement, including work as Futurist with the FBI, Senior Advisor to Interpol and street police officer. As the founder of the Future Crimes Institute and chair for Policy, Law & Ethics at Singularity University, he has continued to investigate the intriguing, often terrifying intersection of science and crime, uncovering nascent threats and combating the darker side of technology.

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