Ronald Bailey Reviews The Naked Future
"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it," declared tech guru Scott McNealy back in 1999. Fifteen years later McNealy's statement is no longer factually controversial. We all give up gigabytes of personal information to Facebook, Foursquare, Google, AT&T—and that's just the voluntary stuff. In the past year, former government contractor Edward Snowden has revealed that our own government has been engaging in pervasive domestic spying, keeping track of everyone we've called, for how long we spoke, and from where. Privacy looks increasingly like a quaint mid-20th century relic.
Ronald Bailey reviews The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move?, by Futurist Deputy Editor Patrick Tucker. The book explores a more positive take on how we can personally use the megabytes of information generated and collected by our digital paraphernalia to help us live smarter, healthier, and better lives, and maybe even regain some measure of privacy.