Information everyone should know

Kevin Mitnick, in case you aren’t familiar with the name, is a former hacker and convicted criminal now turned white-hat penetration tester - and author of several books about it. And as you can judge from the subtitle, not at all modest about it either. But undeniably a font of knowledge on the matter.

You may be aware that your actions online aren’t totally anonymous, but in the past few years changes to technology and to laws have made that drastically even less true, likely without you realizing. This book is a very useful eye-opener for everyone, whether you think you need it or not. Do you have “smart appliances” or tv in your home? Did you know you can go to jail for deleting your browser history even if you’ve done nothing wrong? Do you want to know how to minimize your risk online? This is a good overview and summary of all these and more.

Mitnick goes all the way to showing you how to be completely invisible online, which is a very difficult thing these days, but you can take away as much or as little of that as you need. Still, as he points out there are legitimate reasons why you might need to know this stuff. For example, escaping an abusive relationship (or talking to a friend who is). Going through a bitter divorce. Living in or travelling to a country with very restrictive internet rules. Need to travel overseas with a laptop or other device containing confidential data that you’re professionally obliged to protect (doctor/lawyer confidentiality for example, or company research secrets). This book will help you become aware of issues you may not even know about, and how to deal with them to whatever level you need.

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Good for its time

This would have been good....4 years ago. Its mostly pretty obvious and outdated information now.

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Mixed Feelings.

I have mixed feelings about the book, and it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I'll rate it four stars because I think it's good content but probably just not for me.

The first thing I noticed is that the advice given either seems to fall into two categories. The very basic, such as password strength guides and tips, how passwords are broken, password managers, drive encryption, browser cache and private browsing, recommended addons, etc. These are great for someone who is new to computer security, but ultimately I didn't learn much from it.

The second category is the very advanced, specific, and involved. Things like getting burner phones, separate devices to separate your anonymous presence from your real world identity, bribing strangers to purchase gift cards on your behalf, TOR onion routing, laundering bitcoin, plausible deniability, etc. All of these things are rather extreme steps, probably only useful to a foreign affairs reporter or whistleblower, not greatly useful to the average person trying to minimize their online footprint. Worse is that a lot of it is presented as "this is what this infamous criminal did wrong and got him caught, and here's what he should have done", this could be Mitnick leaning into the romanticized hacker archetype or his 'badboy' reputation, but it gives the book a certain... Shady vibe? Like saying that it's useful to reporters for plausible deniability while sounding like the advice was intended for an audience with more questionable intent. Idk, pet peeve maybe, but nonetheless I doubt most people would benefit from or understand this half of the books advice.

There are a couple of chapters in the middle that have more useful general advice; For example, how sites track you, example cases, and what to do about it. These are more just case studies highlighting how electronic tracking in the modern world has spiraled out of control and why you should care about privacy.

Lastly, although the book is only a few years old it's already starting to show its age. As rapidly evolving and ever-changing technology marches on, I expect that in a few more years a good portion of the specific advice will be outdated.

So if you've done any IT-Sec before you probably won't learn much new, and the more extreme steps / advice are unlikely to be beneficial for most people. Take these things into consideration and decide whether this book is right for you.

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Good content, good narration.

Very good content from Kevin in this book. Even though I'll probably never get to the point where I need to exercise this information, it's good to have it as a resource. #Audible1

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Excellent information to protect your privacy.

Excellent information on the many ways you are vulnerable to data, privacy and sensitive information attacks.

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Good but not his best

Not nearly as Mitnick’s Ghost in the Wires (it was FANTASTIC and full of real life suspense), but still interesting. Lots of practical information.

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Good book but

If you have some knowledge of privacy tools it may be redundant. I learned some new things but was expecting better stories and technology.

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