Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World
Summary
A security expert’s overview of mass surveillance by governments and corporations after Snowden. Schneier explains how data is collected and combined, why corporate and state surveillance reinforce each other, and what the harms are. He ends with technical, legal, and personal proposals for limiting surveillance.
Why it’s useful here
- An accessible introduction to recommend to readers new to the topic.
- Explains the public–private surveillance partnership: why data held by companies becomes available to the state.
- Practical framing for a community server’s own data practices: what you don’t collect can’t be taken.
Key ideas
- Data as a byproduct of computing
- Public–private surveillance partnership
- Collect less, keep less: data minimization as security
- Proposals for governments, corporations, and individuals
Related
- rogaway-2015-moral-character-of-cryptographic-work.md
- zuboff-2019-age-of-surveillance-capitalism.md