cover image Digital Assassination: Protecting Your Reputation, Brand, or Business Against Online Attacks

Digital Assassination: Protecting Your Reputation, Brand, or Business Against Online Attacks

Richard Torrenzano and Mark Davis. St. Martin’s, $25.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-61791-2

There are no shortage of ways that a malicious person can—with no great expense or trouble to himself—use the Internet to assassinate character, say strategic communications expert Torrenzano and consultant Davis. “Digital assassination” is a deliberate campaign to spread harmful lies, or take a fact grossly out of context or embellish it bizarrely, destroying carefully cultivated brands or businesses, careers, and personal relationships in the process. Though acrimonious backbiting is nothing new, modern-day character assassins have many new platforms from which to attack. The authors discuss the various methods, including search result manipulation, identity theft, undocumented charges and concocted images, Google bombs, anonymous and mirror sites, data theft, and perhaps most insidiously, vendetta Web sites masquerading as news sites. The book’s great strengths are its exhaustive research and its discussion of how principles of human behavior, not technology, are the driving factors behind this dark side of the Internet. Its weakness is in the palpable fear and mistrust of the Internet—the constant refrain of outdated phrases like “this new digital world” and the authors final admonition to “in a machine world, be more human.” However, the extent of their research and suggestions for blunting attacks are admirable and make for a compelling read. (Nov.)