The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy: Practical Tips for Staying Safe Online - Softcover

Blue, Violet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1593276486 ISBN 13: 9781593276485

Publisher: No Starch Press, 2015

Synopsis

The whirlwind of social media, online dating, and mobile apps can make life a dream—or a nightmare. For every trustworthy website, there are countless jerks, bullies, and scam artists who want to harvest your personal information for their own purposes. But you can fight back, right now.

In The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy, award-winning author and investigative journalist Violet Blue shows you how women are targeted online and how to keep yourself safe. Blue’s practical, user-friendly advice will teach you how to:
–Delete personal content from websites
–Use website and browser privacy controls effectively
–Recover from and prevent identity theft
–Figure out where the law protects you—and where it doesn’t
–Set up safe online profiles
–Remove yourself from people-finder websites

Even if your privacy has already been compromised, don’t panic. It’s not too late to take control. Let The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy help you cut through the confusion and start protecting your online life.

About this title

About the Author

Violet Blue is a six-time Independent Publisher Book Award winning investigative journalist on cybersecurity, privacy and digital rights, having bylined for outlets including O The Oprah Magazine, Engadget, Financial Times, CNN, CBS News, San Francisco Chronicle, Popular Science, Yahoo News, and many others. Guardian UK called Ms. Blue, "One of the leading figures in tech writing in the world." She is a member of the Internet Press Guild and Advisor to online legal privacy resource Without My Consent.
 
Ms. Blue's most notable book appearance was on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Her books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian.

Reviews

Gr 10 Up—A thorough (but flawed) look at Internet protection aimed squarely at female users. There is a battle to be fought, and the author intends to arm the female population with the critical information they need to protect their privacy. In her least objective moments, Blue, an investigative tech reporter and self-described agitator, posits that "you actually can post or share sexy pictures of yourself and stay in control." She also states that "filthy-rich celebrities are more able than the rest of us to hide things they consider private or embarrassing because they can afford to" and should therefore keep their social media privacy suggestions to themselves. The plethora of nude celebrity photo hacking scandals seems to contradict this assertion. References to companies as "greedy" and "douchey" are further examples of biased opinion presented as fact. Blue offers clear suggestions on how to avoid becoming an Internet victim, but her unwavering confidence in her own opinions and ardor for the topic make her advice seem heavy-handed at times, which may put off teens. VERDICT This informative but flawed book works best as a resource for victims in search of a staunch advocate or as an option for adults, who can better separate the opinions from the useful facts.—Cindy Wall, Southington Library & Museum, CT

Edition details

• Publisher: No Starch Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1593276486
• ISBN 13: 9781593276485
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176