Silicon Jungle

A Novel of Deception, Power, and Internet Intrigue

Häftad, Engelska, 2015

327 kr

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Beskrivning

What happens when a naive intern is granted unfettered access to people's most private thoughts and actions? Stephen Thorpe lands a coveted internship at Ubatoo, an Internet empire that provides its users with popular online services, from a search engine and e-mail, to social networking. When Stephen's boss asks him to work on a project with the American Coalition for Civil Liberties, Stephen innocently obliges, believing he is mining Ubatoo's vast databases to protect people unfairly targeted in the name of national security. But nothing is as it seems. Suspicious individuals surface, doing all they can to access Ubatoo's wealth of confidential information. This need not require technical wizardry--simply knowing how to manipulate a well-intentioned intern may be enough. The Silicon Jungle is a cautionary fictional tale of data mining's promise and peril. Baluja raises ethical questions about contemporary technological innovations, and how minute details can be routinely pieced together into rich profiles that reveal our habits, goals, and secret desires--all ready to be exploited.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2015-08-25
Mått:156 x 235 x 26 mm
Vikt:454 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:352
Förlag:Princeton University Press
ISBN:9780691169675

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Mer om författaren

Shumeet Baluja is a senior staff research scientist at Google and the inventor of over 100 patents in algorithms, data mining, privacy, and artificial intelligence.

Recensioner i media

Co-Winner of the 2012 Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work, Media Ecology Association "Baluja's clever, cynical debut explores the frightening possibilities of data mining... A nod to Upton Sinclair's muckraking The Jungle, which scared its readers into regulating the meat-packing industry, this lively if depressing novel suggests that computer snooping is too seductive to control, despite the consequences."--Publishers Weekly "[F]righteningly convincing... The read is quick, the questions will linger, and the ideas are so intriguing... Baluja simplifies the abstract world of tech-speak for the rest of us while aiming to do for the Internet what Upton Sinclair's The Jungle did for the meat industry: make readers reconsider its safety. For fans of intelligent thrillers."--Stephen Morrow, Library Journal "In the era of the ubiquitous web company, The Silicon Jungle provides ample food for thought."--Zena Iovino, New Scientist "[T]his cautionary tale is fascinating for its exploration of technology as a conduit for crime."--Michele Leber, Booklist Online "The book's central message is fascinating. A company like Google, Baluja points out, has far more information on U.S. citizens than does the FBI and far fewer restrictions on how to use it. It's a chilling message in a fun package."--Kathleen Offenholley, Mathematics Teacher

Innehållsförteckning

Preface xi Endings 1 Anklets 3 Anthropologists in the Midst 10 Mollycoddle 13 Touchpoints 19 Checking In 26 Working 9 to 4 28 Predicting the Future and 38 Needles 33 Contact 39 Two Geeks in a Pod 47 An Understatement 53 Euphoria and Diet Pills 61 To Better Days 70 Marathon 75 The Life and Soul of an Intern 81 Candid Cameras 85 Episodes 89 Liberal Food and Even More Liberal Activism 92 Subjects 100 Newsworthy 105 Patience 110 Hypergrowth 113 Little Pink Houses 117 Truth, Lies, and Algorithms 122 Negotiations and Herding Cats 129 The JENNY Discovery 133 I Dream of JENNY 138 A Five-Step Program: Hallucinations and Archetypes 143 Over-Deliver 150 A Life Changed in Four Phone Calls 154 Giving Thanks 160 A Drive through the Country 166 Control 171 A Tale of Two Tenures 178 Prelude to Pie 183 The Yuri Effect 188 Apple Pie 195 Thoughts Like Butterflies 201 Core-Relations 207 Collide 212 Control, Revisited 220 Fables of the Deconstruction 223 Control, Foregone 232 Foundations 236 One Way 241 Sebastin's Friends 244 A Tinker by Any Other Name 251 When It Rains 262 I Am a Heartbeat 267 What I Did This Summer 273 A Permanent Position 280 For Adam 284 Faith 288 Counting by Two 291 Disconnect 298 Sahim 304 Epilogue: Beginnings 309 Acknowledgments 313 Know More 315 Privacy Policy of a Few Organizations 317 References 319