Books and videos about privacy?

Question

I'm looking for books, videos, TV shows or other media to aid a college-level discussion on privacy and the affect that today's technology has on it.

Subject materials can include, but are not limited to:

• Social networking sites (e.g. Facebook)
• Protection of account information
• Data mining and its relationship to current laws around search and seizure
• Video monitoring
• Anonymity on the Internet
• U.S. laws and court cases
• Patriot Act
• Camera phones, reposting of photos

I'd appreciate any suggestions for resources that might work in a college class. I'm particularly interested in resources that can appeal to students in multiple disciplines.

Answer 1

Chaos Communications Club maintains a library with recordings from Chaos Communications Congress (and other events), where the topic of privacy is a big issue. A search for privacy turned up a few hits:

http://media.ccc.de/search?q=Privacy&cmd=Search!

For instance the talk on full disk encryption mentions how it's becoming common place for border police go through your computer and in some cases even mirror the entire disk.

Then there's a talk about privacy from this year about the social semantic web, which is MySpace and all that. I haven't watched it yet but it might be what you are looking for: http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2008/25c3-2873-en-privacy_in_the_social_semantic_web.html

Otherwise I'd suggest searching for privacy on slashdot.org that should turn up a ludicrous amount of articles.

Answer 2

I would recommend Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World

Also, I took a computer/professional ethics course that had a pretty good reading list. You can see some of the recommended books here.

Answer 3

I recommend my book Database Nation, the Death of Privacy in the 21st Century. The book was published back in 2000 but it has a lot of good material that's still relevant today. You can download several chapters from the website.

Answer 4

Cory Doctorow's book "Little Brother" is a Young Adult novel, but also a thinly disguised how-to on privacy, encryption, civil disobedience etc.