Social networks are the defining cultural movement of our time, empowering us in constantly evolving ways. We can all now be reporters, alerting the world to breaking news; participate in crowd-sourced scientific research; and become investigators, helping the police solve crimes. Social networks have even helped to bring down governments. But they have also greatly accelerated the erosion of our personal privacy rights-and anyone could become a victim. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest nation in the world. While that nation appears to be a comforting small town in which we socialize with our selective group of friends, it and the rest of the Web are actually lawless frontiers of hidden and unpredictable dangers. The same power of information that can topple governments can destroy a person's career or marriage.
As leading expert on social networks and privacy Lori Andrews shows through groundbreaking research and a host of stunning stories of abuses, as we work and chat and shop and date over the Web, we are opening ourselves up to increasingly intrusive and anonymous surveillance by employers, schools, lawyers, the police, and aggressive data aggregator services. Some mobile Web devices are even being programmed to listen in on us and feed data services a steady stream of information about what we are doing. Even the best services can't remove our personal data from the Web for long.
As Andrews shows, the legal system cannot be counted on to protect us. In the thousands of cases brought to trial by those whose rights have been violated, judges have most often ruled against them. That is why, in addition to revealing the dangers and providing the best expert advice about protecting ourselves, Andrews proposes that we all become supporters of a constitution for the Web, which she has drafted and introduces in this book. Now is the time to join her and take action-the very future of privacy is at stake.
"Informative."-New York Times
One bizarre death is just that---a death. Two? Could be a coincidence. But in Lori Andrewss latest thriller, geneticist Dr. Alexandra Blake discovers something much more dangerous than a killer---an epidemic.
Taking a break from decoding the genetic sequence of a tropical disease, Alex takes on an investigation into the gruesome and unexplained death of a DEA agent on a mob stakeout in New Mexico. Within hours, she uncovers similar deaths throughout the Southwest. Is it a naturally occurring epidemic or has a lethal bioweapon been released in the United States?
With the nations attention focused on a provocative presidential race, Alexs attempts to warn Homeland Security fail. Only with the help of a rogue DEA agent and a cutting-edge supercomputer will she and the rest of her team at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology stand a chance of putting an end to the devastation before public hysteria rages out of control.
From Alexs lab to the closed rooms of a killers mind, IMMUNITY maps the perfect sequence for an infectious, edge-of-your-seat thriller.From the Compact Disc edition.
In The Traveler, John Twelve Hawks introduced readers to a dangerous world inspired by the modern technology that monitors our lives. Under constant surveillance of the 'Vast Machine,' a sophisticated computer network run by a ruthless group, society is mostly unaware of its own imprisonment. Gabriel and Michael Corrigan, brothers who were raised "off the grid," have recently learned they are Travelers like their long-lost father- part of a centuries-old line of prophets able to journey to different realms of consciousness and enlighten the world to resist being controlled. But power affects the brothers differently. As The Traveler ends, Gabriel hesitates under the weight of responsibility. Michael seizes the opportunity-and joins the enemy.
THE DARK RIVER opens in New York City with a stunning piece of news. Gabriel's father, who has been missing for nearly twenty years, may still be alive and trapped somewhere in Europe. Gabriel and his Harlequin protector, Maya, immediately mobilize to escape New York and find the long-lost Traveler. Simultaneously, Michael orders the Brethren-the ruthless group that has been hunting Gabriel-into a full-scale search. Gabriel yearns to find his father to protect him; Michael aims to destroy the man whose existence threatens his newfound power. The race moves from the underground tunnels of New York and London to ruins hidden beneath Rome and Berlin, to a remote region of Africa that is rumored to harbor one of history's greatest treasures. And as the story moves toward its chilling conclusion, Maya must decide if she will trade everything to rescue Gabriel.
A mesmerizing return to the places and people so richly portrayed in The Traveler, THE DARK RIVER is propelled by edge-of-the-seat suspense and haunted by a vision of a world where both hope and freedom are about to disappear.
Thirty-year-old George Davies can’t bring himself to hold his newborn son. After months of accepting his lame excuses and strange behavior, his wife demands that he see a therapist, and George, desperate to save his unraveling marriage and redeem himself as a father and husband, reluctantly agrees.
As he delves into his childhood memories, he begins to recall things he hasn’t thought of in twenty years. The odd, rambling letters his father sent home before he died. The jovial mother who started dating too soon after his father’s death. A boy who appeared one night when George was lonely, then told him secrets he didn’t want to know. How no one believed this new friend was real and that he was responsible for the bad things that were happening.
Terrified by all that he has forgotten, George struggles to remember what really happened in the months following his father’s death. And when a mysterious murder is revealed, remembering the past becomes the only way George can protect himself—and his young family.
A psychological thriller in the tradition of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History—with shades of The Exorcist—the smart and suspenseful A GOOD AND HAPPY CHILD leaves you questioning the things you remember and frightened of the things you’ve forgotten
When a John Doe with a bayonet wound in his chest is discovered in a Washington, D.C., Dumpster, geneticist Dr. Alexandra Blake of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology is pulled away from her bioterrorism work to aid in the investigation. Just a little digging reveals a corpse that’s not at all that of a homeless robbery victim it was set up to resemble—and Alex and her colleagues find themselves wrapped up in a complicated mystery of high-stakes international financial intrigue.
The homicide investigation is just heating up when a political firestorm erupts over the AFIP’s possession of human skulls brought back from Vietnam thirty years earlier by American servicemen. Alex is handed the delicate task of managing the restoration and return of these grisly souvenirs. Even the President of the United States has become involved, with the actual exchange scheduled to take place at a White House ceremony. Alex knows it’s an important job—and the skulls take on much more urgent significance when she uncovers evidence of a much bigger crime. Suddenly Alex herself is a target and the White House is under fire.
THE SILENT ASSASSIN is a tour-de-force thriller combining the intricate details of forensic science with the dark side of Washington politics and one of the freshest and most original characters in crime fiction today.
Dr. Alexandra Blake has the job of a lifetime. As a cutting-edge geneticist at AFIP, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., Alex is charged with using her research into the genetics of viruses to find a vaccine against bioterrorism. But the institutes new director, James Wiatt, wants to turn the AFIP into a mini FBI by directing its resources toward crime solving, an effort to rival the Bureaus forensic department. When a series of related murders falls under his jurisdiction, he gets his chance to prove the AFIP can compete with the Bureau.
Alex is forced to put her research on hold so she can cover forensics on the case, which involves a killer who murders women near military bases across the country and then tattoos their corpses. At first she resents being distracted from her lab work, but as she becomes immersed in the case, Alex resolves to catch the killer. She knows its only a matter of time before he leaves some evidence for Alex to trace back to him. But when another murder strikes closer to home for Alex and her colleagues, and her boyfriend, a congressman from Texas, it will take more than forensic science to keep them safe.
With its spellbinding mix of suspense, forensics, and romance, Lori Andrewss debut novel signals the arrival of a powerful new writer on the crime fiction shelf.
