44 Books Like Uneasy Access

Privacy’s Blueprint presents a deep, vivid, and concrete account of how technology companies design devices, websites, and software in ways that diminish privacy. Design choices are frequently clandestine, built so that people don’t notice them or how they are being pushed and manipulated into sharing more data or making choices that surrender their privacy. With clear and engaging examples, Hartzog illuminates these shadowy designs and shows how they work. He contends that privacy law can’t be effective unless it regulates design. According to Hartzog, design can be regulated in ways that aren’t overly controlling or stifling to innovation. This is a great book, filled with countless insights, and it is highly accessible. 

Hate Crimes in Cyberspace begins with a series of horror stories, showing in the most compelling and visceral way the harm caused by online harassment. Citron shows us that online harassment is disproportionately focused on women and marginalized people. Far from rare, the harassment is frighteningly prevalent. The harassers make vile threats of rape and murder, post nude photos, engage in doxing, and spew disturbing messages of hate. All the more terrifying is that the people seething with hatred are not in a distant faraway land. They are here among us; they are professionals, students, and others that appear polite in person. 

After opening our eyes to this harrowing shadowy world, Citron discusses how the law ought to respond. She argues that civil rights law can effectively address the problem – but the law must evolve to make this happen.  She also thoughtfully explores how protections against harassment don’t infringe… show more.

I had a hard time choosing which book by Richards to include, as his earlier book, Intellectual Privacy, is a superb discussion about how privacy is essential for our expression and consumption of ideas. In Why Privacy Matters, Richards broadens his focus to discuss other reasons why privacy is important. He debunks common myths, such as privacy is dying or privacy is about creepiness. In an eloquent and clear way, Richards explains why privacy matters for our identity, freedom, and protection. This book powerfully shows that how we think about privacy is essential to effectively safeguarding it. Richards writes in an engaging and accessible way, but his book has tremendous depth and insight. 

Ari Waldman’s Industry Unbound eviscerates many of the current privacy laws and corporate privacy programs. On the surface, we appear to be living in the golden age of privacy law. Privacy laws are being passed at a feverish rate. Many companies now have dedicated teams of individuals who build a privacy program at the company to comply with the laws, assess privacy risks, train employees, and ensure that products and services are designed in ways that are protective of privacy. Unfortunately, Waldman contends, these privacy programs are hollow. They amount to building a meaningless paper record and end up cloaking poor privacy practices with a pretty facade. Even those who do not agree with the potency of Waldman’s critique must take note of the concerns he raises. His arguments are essential to engage with.  

I read this while on vacation, and though it was a wonderful trip, I kept thinking how much I was looking forward to getting back to the hotel room to continue reading.

The protagonist’s all-consuming job working for a tech company made me realize how much I wished I had used social media less. I loved how the book made us see how Mae’s job, at first exciting, took her to places she didn’t want to go.

In today’s online world, the completely interconnected one of this book is a cautionary tale.

Westin’s book completely blew me away the first time I read it. I felt like I had discovered a long-lost time capsule containing everything I needed to know about the technological and social changes that created the foundations for surveillance in the United States today. 

Since Edward Snowden, I tended to think about surveillance in terms of the internet and the National Security Agency. But Westin showed me that surveillance is much broader—socially and historically—than the NSA’s surveillance of the internet. Westin provided me with a template for analyzing surveillance.

Westin distinguishes physical surveillance from data surveillance, and he examines the difference between corporate and government surveillance. Most importantly, I found his recommendations for protecting privacy in the face of increased surveillance powers incredibly relevant even today. 

Claire and Brandon Avery live in a world pretty much like ours but with surveillance notched up to a point where there is very little privacy. It is also a world in which the government is very suspicious of high intelligence, and the Averys’ son Harrison is very intelligent indeed. But how do you teach a six-year-old child, who hasn’t learnt how to lie, that he must hide his genius?

It’s amazing how much is packed into this short story. I was weak with apprehension when I realised what was at stake. If the man from the government discovers just how clever Harrison is, he will be taken away from his parents and neutralised. The Averys’ agony as they make plans to escape is palpable. And the ending knocks you sideways.

I came upon this little gem relatively recently and just read it again to check that it was as… show more.

I always knew cryptography was political, but I had no idea how political until I read this book. Seeing the subject I am so fascinated by through the words of a political journalist was truly eye-opening. Steven Levy navigates a deeply fascinating period in modern technological history – the late twentieth-century battles between governments trying to maintain power and control over communications, and technologists who saw the fledgling internet as an opportunity to build a new world. Cryptography, which protects digital communications, sat plum on the frontline between these two communities, hence battles over cryptography turned into so-called 'crypto wars’ (although nobody died). Nobody who read this book was surprised with much that Edward Snowden had to say to the world in 2013 – Snowden was just reportage of the latest chapter in the same ongoing conflict.

Growing Up in Public addresses something that keeps digital-age parents awake at night: the fact that everything kids say and do will live online forever.

What does authenticity look like when the whole world is watching? How do kids develop character in an always-connected age? And how might we help our kids use digital tools to become the best of whoever they are?

We had the privilege of previewing the answers in Devorah Heitner’s fantastic book, forthcoming on September 12.

The book introduced Interior Design as an intellectual subject with a firm theoretical grounding that went beyond style and taste to influential and foundational concepts and promoted it as a serious field of study. It is a collection of accessible essays and so is easy to dip into. My favourite essay is "Figures, Doors and Passageways," which discusses the formation of contemporary systems of circulation, the development of the corridor, and the evolution of modern ideas of personal privacy.