Tuesday, July 26, 2011

"Landau details both the internal threat and industrial espionage, and it is not a pretty picture."

Book review by Ben Rothke... 
Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies is a hard book to categorize. It is not about security, but it deals extensively with it. It is not a law book, but legal topics are pervasive throughout the book. It is not a telecommunications book, but extensively details telco issues. Ultimately, the book is a most important overview of security and privacy and the nature of surveillance in current times... 

Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies is an extremely important book on the topic of the many risks posed by new wiretapping technologies. Landau has the remarkable talent of taking very broad issues and detailing them in a concise, yet comprehensive manner. The book should be seen as the starting point for discussion on a most important topic.

Landau does an excellent job of detailing how unwarranted surveillance can undermine security and affect our rights, while noting that security for every citizen is paramount to the very spirit of the Constitution.

The book closes with the very principles of what it means to get communications security right and that adhering to these principles cannot guarantee that we will be completely secure. But failure to adhere to them will guarantee that we will not. (more)