Privacy Concerns Related to Unlocking a Cell Phone

A battle between law enforcement and technology companies continues over issues involved in gaining access to data from cell phone of a San Bernardino shooter ("Relatives of San Bernardino Victims and Tech Giants Lend Voices to Apple-FBI Fight over Locked iPhone," The Washington Post, March 3, 2016). In this case, a judge "directed Apple to write software disabling a feature that erases the phone’s data after 10 incorrect attempts at trying a password." Apple stalled this process with legal tactics, stating that creating such a back door into one of it products would have a major impact on its business.

Review selected hard copy/online library books related to electronic privacy and security at LSC-CyFair Branch Library. Click the title of a listed item, select the "Place Hold" button in the listing, and enter your library card number and PIN for each title you want to request for pick up at the library.

Use these subject words and phrases to find more information in the library catalog:

• big data
• computer security
• electronic surveillance
• information technology
• intelligence service
• national security
• right of privacy

They Know Everything about You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy by Robert Scheer with Sara Beladi
Nation, 2015
call number: 323.448 Sch

"The revelation that the federal government has full access to all phone records and the vast trove of presumably private personal data posted on the Internet has brought the threat of a surveillance society to the fore. But the erosion of privacy rights extends far beyond big government. Big business has long played a leading role in the hollowing out of personal freedoms. In this new book, Robert Scheer shows how our most intimate habits, from private correspondence, book pages read, and lists of friends and phone conversations have been seamlessly combined in order to create a detailed map of an individual's social and biological DNA." - publisher's summary

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier
Norton, 2015
call number: 358.414 Str

"Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who is with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you're unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. . . Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we're offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, and chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cyber-criminals in huge data breaches. Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we've gained? Security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He shows us what we can do to reform our government surveillance programs and shake up surveillance-based business models, while also providing tips for you to protect your privacy every day." - publisher's summary excerpt

Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection by Jacob Silverman
Harper, 2015
call number: 303.483 Sil

"Social networking has grown into a staple of modern society, but its continued evolution is becoming increasingly detrimental to our lives. Shifts in communication and privacy are affecting us more than we realize or understand. . . . Jacob Silverman calls for social media users to take back ownership of their digital selves from the Silicon Valley corporations who claim to know what's best for them. Integrating politics, sociology, national security, pop culture, and technology, he reveals the surprising conformity at the heart of Internet culture, explaining how social media companies engineer their products to encourage shallow engagement and discourage dissent. Reflecting on the collapsed barriers between our private and public lives, Silverman brings into focus the inner conflict we feel when deciding what to share and what to "like, " and explains how we can take the steps we need to free ourselves from its grip." - publisher's summary excerpt

Drones for Warfare Now Cheaper and Easier to Get

China is supplying less costly "armed drones for targeted killing by remote control" to most any nation interested in the technology ("A Fast Growing Club: Countries That Use Drones for Killing by Remote Control," Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2016). Meanwhile, the United States requires an okay by Congress for drone sales. Reportedly, six countries have the capacity for drone warfare, including Nigeria, Pakistan, Iraq, Great Britain, Israel, and the United States, although seventy-eight nations use the unmanned aerial vehicles (AKA drones) for reconnaissance.

Review selected hard copy/online library books related to drones at LSC-CyFair Branch Library. Click the title of a listed item, select the "Place Hold" button in the listing, and enter your library card number and PIN for each title you want to request for pick up at the library.

Use these subject words and phrases to find more information in the library catalog:

• drone aircraft
• drones
• military robots

The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones: Confronting a New Age of Threat by Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum Basic, 2015
call number: 303.601 Wit

"Wittes (senior fellow, governance studies, Brookings Institution; Campaign 2012) and Blum (Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Harvard Law Sch.; Islands of Agreement), who co-direct the Harvard Law School-Brookings Project on Law and Security, introduce readers to the new and upcoming threats to security, privacy, and health in the 21st century, which are often enabled by low-cost, advanced technology. With ready access to drone technology, nano-tech, and biological tools and information, these threats are situated in a political economy of the role of the state, private citizens, and non-state actors. What Wittes and Blum set out to do is provide instructive possible actions that government may be poised to take, and others in which government players may not yet have ample guidelines to address." - Library Journal review excerpt

Opposing Perspectives on the Drone Debate by Bradley Jay Strawser with Lisa Hajjar, Steven Levine, Feisal H. Naqvi, John Fabian Witt
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
call number: 358.414 Str

"Five scholars square off in a lively debate over the ethics of drones and their contentious use" - publisher summary

Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution by Richard Whittle
Holt, 2014
call number: 623.746 Whi

"Increasingly prominent in recent headlines, unmanned drones have a long history, as veteran military journalist Whittle (The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey) relates in this engrossing book. Thousands of drones were flown during WWII as targets for training antiaircraft gunners, and they played a modest reconnaissance role in Vietnam. But as Whittle shows, today's long-endurance, missile-firing drones are spinoffs of models developed by entrepreneurial startups during the 1980s. Largely commanded by former fighter pilots, the Air Force was hostile to unmanned planes until the 1990s wars in the Balkans. Peacekeeping forces could not track the marauding Serbian army, which shot down several manned reconnaissance aircraft, but an experimental drone, named the Predator, solved the problem. It was unarmed, but an updated version successfully launched a Hellfire missile in 2001 at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base test range. After 9/11, remotely controlled drones began raining destruction on targets identified, sometimes correctly, as enemies of the U.S. By 2010 the U.S. military possessed 8,000 and the number continues to grow. Whittle concludes this impressively researched, thought-provoking history by pointing out that drones have revolutionized warfare, but like previous revolutions (the machine gun, aircraft, nuclear weapons) they did not make the world a safer place and created as many problems as they solved." - Library Journal review excerpt

The Cost of Concussions in Sports

Ten concussions took a toll on a twenty-five-year-old football player whose brain was recently studied for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) after he died from a heart infection ("Brain of Dead Football Player, 25, Showed CTE Damage after 10 Concussions," CBC News (Canada), January 4, 2016). The young man experienced his initial concussion when he was only eight. What is the effect of repetitive head injuries on the brain? Can amateur and professional athletes be protected from the potentially devastating hazards of head trauma?

Review selected hard copy/online library books related to brain concussions at LSC-CyFair Branch Library. Click the title of a listed item, select the "Place Hold" button in the listing, and enter your library card number and PIN for each title you want to request for pick up at the library.

Use these subject words and phrases to find more information in the library catalog:

• concussion brain
• head injuries
• sports injuries brain

Sports-Related Concussions in Youth: Improving the Science, Changing the Culture by Robert Graham, Frederick P. Rivara, Morgan A. Ford, and Carol Mason Spicer, Editors; Committee on Sports-Related Concussions in Youth; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Institute of Medicine; National Research Council
National Academies Press, 2014
Online Full-Text (Note: No Login Required to Read Online)

"Sports-Related Concussions in Youth: Improving the Science, Changing the Culture reviews the science of sports-related concussions in youth from elementary school through young adulthood, as well as in military personnel and their dependents. This report recommends actions that can be taken by a range of audiences - including research funding agencies, legislatures, state and school superintendents and athletic directors, military organizations, and equipment manufacturers, as well as youth who participate in sports and their parents - to improve what is known about concussions and to reduce their occurrence. Sports-Related Concussions in Youth finds that while some studies provide useful information, much remains unknown about the extent of concussions in youth; how to diagnose, manage, and prevent concussions; and the short- and long-term consequences of concussions as well as repetitive head impacts that do not result in concussion symptoms." - publisher summary excerpt

League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru
Crown Archetype, 2013
call number: 617.102 Fai

"While the NFL is the most profitable and popular sports league in America, it's recently been buffeted by concerns around the long-term effect concussions have had on former players. ESPN investigative reporters Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru lay out evidence that the NFL actively obfuscated attempts by independent scientists and medical professionals to draw a connection between football's inherent violence and chronic brain disease afflicting former players." - Publishers Weekly review excerpt

Coping with Concussion and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Guide to Living with the Challenges Associated with Post-Concussion Syndrome and Brain Trauma by Diane Roberts Stoler, Ed.D., and Barbara Albers Hill
Avery, 2013
call number: 617.481 Sto

"Stoler, a board-certified neuropsychologist, licensed health and sports psychologist, and brain injury survivor, and author Hill provide concussion and mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients with a succinct guide to living with these conditions. This easy-to-understand book begins with an overview of the brain, how the organ works, and what a concussion is. The authors also present information on symptoms, types of TBI, diagnosis, and treatment." - Library Journal review excerpt