Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest

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Finn Brunton (Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University) Helen Nissenbaum (Professor, Cornell Tech)

Obfuscation

A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest

Finn Brunton (Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University), Helen Nissenbaum (Professor, Cornell Tech)

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English

Massachusetts Inst of Tec
02 September 2016

Society & Social Sciences; Privacy & data protection; Data encryption; Network security

Series: Obfuscation

How we can evade, protest, and sabotage today's pervasive digital surveillance by deploying more data, not less-and why we should.

With Obfuscation, Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum mean to start a revolution. They are calling us not to the barricades but to our computers, offering us ways to fight today's pervasive digital surveillance-the collection of our data by governments, corporations, advertisers, and hackers. To the toolkit of privacy protecting techniques and projects, they propose adding obfuscation- the deliberate use of ambiguous, confusing, or misleading information to interfere with surveillance and data collection projects. Brunton and Nissenbaum provide tools and a rationale for evasion, noncompliance, refusal, even sabotage-especially for average users, those of us not in a position to opt out or exert control over data about ourselves. Obfuscation will teach users to push back, software developers to keep their user data safe, and policy makers to gather data without misusing it. Brunton and Nissenbaum present a guide to the forms and formats that obfuscation has taken and explain how to craft its implementation to suit the goal and the adversary. They describe a series of historical and contemporary examples, including radar chaff deployed by World War II pilots, Twitter bots that hobbled the social media strategy of popular protest movements, and software that can camouflage users' search queries and stymie online advertising. They go on to consider obfuscation in more general terms, discussing why obfuscation is necessary, whether it is justified, how it works, and how it can be integrated with other privacy practices and technologies.

By: Finn Brunton (Assistant Professor of Media Culture and Communication New York University), Helen Nissenbaum (Professor, Cornell Tech)
Imprint: Massachusetts Inst of Tec
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 127mm, Spine: 10mm
Weight: 136g
ISBN: 9780262529860
ISBN 10: 0262529866
Series: Obfuscation
Pages: 136
Publication Date: 02 September 2016
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Finn Brunton is Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University and the author of Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press. Helen Nissenbaum is Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication and Computer Science at New York University and the author of Privacy in Context. She is one of the developers of the TrackMeNot software.

Reviews for Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest

Right now we're being watched. It might not be literal watching: it might be that a computer somewhere, owned by a government or a corporation, is collecting or mining the crumbs of data we all left around the world today.... When it comes to maintaining their digital privacy, many people probably think about software like encrypted messaging apps and Tor browsers. But as Brunton and Nissenbaum detail in Obfuscation, there are many other ways to hide one's digital trail. Obfuscation, the first book-length look at the topic, contains a wealth of ideas for prankish disobedience, analysis-frustrating techniques, and other methods of collective protest. -Motherboard At Obfuscation's core is a dystopian vision, offering solutions for 'users' who are assumed to have enough want-to and know-how to follow the authors down this road. It is a shame that obfuscation to this degree has become necessary. But at least we are now armed with the necessary knowledge, thanks to this book. -Times Higher Education * Reviews * Right now we're being watched. It might not be literal watching: it might be that a computer somewhere, owned by a government or a corporation, is collecting or mining the crumbs of data we all left around the world today.... When it comes to maintaining their digital privacy, many people probably think about software like encrypted messaging apps and Tor browsers. But as Brunton and Nissenbaum detail in Obfuscation, there are many other ways to hide one's digital trail. Obfuscation, the first book-length look at the topic, contains a wealth of ideas for prankish disobedience, analysis-frustrating techniques, and other methods of collective protest. -Motherboard * Reviews *