The Art of Invisibility: The World's Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data by Kevin D. Mitnick
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Scary.

I mean, what non-fiction book about the sheer amount of security loopholes wouldn't be scary? I mean, we're talking about our identities online, in our homes and through all our smart devices, our cars, our workplaces, and everywhere.

It's not even about government abuses. It's about the fact that everyone, everywhere, is at risk. Snowdon may have opened our eyes, but the reality remains that your breasts are still online. Everywhere. Never to be deleted. Always accessible. Forever.

If you're thinking about some other body parts, then keep on thinking, because those will still be there and are being housed on not just government sifter sites, but local and foreign ISPs. And countless private computers.

So what are we doing about it?

We're reading. We're arming ourselves. We're realizing that far from being beset with malicious users and crackers, we're actually beset with a ton of idiots running big businesses saying we're being protected when we really aren't. Security holes are everywhere and they're real and pervasive.

Always on cameras and microphones? Keyloggers as a matter of course on company servers? Regular cracking of your gmail and facebook information? Full breakdowns of any photos you take and post, from location, specific identifiers, etc., right in the metadata? Aren't we worried? Shouldn't we be more worried that what we think are precautionary measures to protect ourselves as we order online or use online banking is only as secure as our weakest link?

Indeed.

And that's why reading books like this should scare you. Not because it tells you how much you should be scared, but because the lax security is as much in our minds as it is in the software. Putting our heads in the sand and saying we're not doing anything wrong is beside the point if we get targeted with ransomware or we're identity hacked or we're just one more in an extremely long list of targeted political somebodies. It's not just about having your private parts online, but that's where most of us will usually get outraged.

So do yourself a favor and arm yourself with some practical knowledge and how-to sets on how to anonymize yourself. :) Mitnick does a pretty damn good job with some of that direct-knowledge stuff. :) Sure, you may know a lot already, and maybe you already use vpn and tor and things like ghostery and HTTPS Everywhere, maybe you practice healthy password management and separate your devices for truly secure transactions. Maybe you don't. But it sure as hell doesn't hurt to know what you're missing. :)

I'm so glad I read this! (It helps to keep up-to-date.) :)

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