cover image WORLD WITHOUT SECRETS: Business, Crime, and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing

WORLD WITHOUT SECRETS: Business, Crime, and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing

R. L. Hunter, . . Wiley/Gartner Press, $27.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-471-21816-6

The warning bell about our rapidly disappearing privacy is sounded again—albeit none too stridently—in this study of new technologies and their impact. Hunter, a vice-president at Gartner's Research organization, a business technology consulting group, wants to sketch out how the omnipresence of computers affects every last centimeter of modern human existence. His first chapter, "Why Won't They Leave Me Alone?" is most to the point, asking, on the subject of Internet commerce, "Is the convenience of being known everywhere worth the risk of being known everywhere?" More worrisome than having a digital signature follow you everywhere online—he uses the example of Amazon.com's ability to remember things you've bought or even just looked at—is the ubiquity of surveillance in public and private spaces. One chapter addresses the tracking of cars, relating the story of a man who was fined $450 for driving his rental car over the speed limit. It wasn't the police that caught him—it was a global positioning satellite system in the car. From there, Hunter assays such subjects as the Open Source debate (over making the source codes of commercial operating systems and applications available to the public) and Internet crime. While each of the chapters is useful by itself, Hunter's thesis gets progressively fainter as the book goes on. Very little is resolved by the end of this less-than-groundbreaking study, but it may still be interesting for those new to the subject. (May)