World Without Secrets: Business, Crime, and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing

From the Publisher: Unique, international personal identifiers ... near-instantaneous data mining ... biometric face printing ... intelligent embedded devices everywhere that record, interpret, and transmit virtually everything you say and do. It's not science fiction. Much of this technology is already in place and the rest is on the way. By the end of the current decade we will inhabit a man-made environment of ubiquitous computing in which everything is recorded and nothing is forgotten. World Without Secrets explores the realities and implications of a world in which anyone who wants badly enough to know anything about you, your business, or anything else will be able to get that information. It examines the information-gathering technologies that are and will be deployed -- on our streets, in our offices and public buildings, even in our homes and cars -- and explains their benefits as well as potential serious abuses. This bone-chilling expose investigates the likely impact of ubiquitous computing on every aspect of our business, personal, political, and cultural lives. Will we be safer and our property more secure? When everything is known, how will we decide what's most important to know? Will there be any way to keep confidential information confidential? How will business protect intellectual capital? World Without Secrets also takes you into the "shadow world" of state and private-sector criminals whose livelihood is based on illicit use of growing mountains of information. It offers strategies for surviving and succeeding in a world that is rife with opportunity but dangerous for the wary and unwary alike. And it suggests policy options that can protect individuals and organizations from exploitation and safeguard the implicit contract between employees, businesses, and society itself. Peppered with uncommonly sharp insights into the way we understand information, conduct business, and try to control our surroundings, World Without Secrets breaks new ground in describing the impact of new technologies on the way we live and work. This comprehensive guide to the immediate future is compelling and necessary reading for anyone who wants to prepare personally and professionally for the enormous changes soon to come.