Authors: Cecelia L. Allison.
Paperback, 211 pages
Publisher: 1st Books Library
Publication Date: 2003-08

Authors: Cass R. Sunstein.
Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 2006-08-24


Reviews :

    The rise of the "information society" offers not only considerable peril but also great promise. Beset from all sides by a never-ending barrage of media, how can we ensure that the most accurate information emerges and is heeded? In this book, Cass R. Sunstein develops a deeply optimistic understanding of the human potential to pool information, and to use that knowledge to improve our lives.
In an age of information overload, it is easy to fall back on our own prejudices and insulate ourselves with comforting opinions that reaffirm our core beliefs. Crowds quickly become mobs. The justification for the Iraq war, the collapse of Enron, the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia--all of these resulted from decisions made by leaders and groups trapped in "information cocoons," shielded from information at odds with their preconceptions. How can leaders and ordinary people challenge insular decision making and gain access to the sum of human knowledge?
Stunning new ways to share and aggregate information, many Internet-based, are helping companies, schools, governments, and individuals not only to acquire, but also to create, ever-growing bodies of accurate knowledge. Through a ceaseless flurry of self-correcting exchanges, wikis, covering everything from politics and business plans to sports and science fiction subcultures, amass--and refine--information. Open-source software enables large numbers of people to participate in technological development. Prediction markets aggregate information in a way that allows companies, ranging from computer manufacturers to Hollywood studios, to make better decisions about product launches and office openings. Sunstein shows how people can assimilate aggregated information without succumbing to the dangers of the herd mentality--and when and why the new aggregation techniques are so astoundingly accurate.
In a world where opinion and anecdote increasingly compete on equal footing with hard evidence, the on-line effort of many minds coming together might well provide the best path to infotopia....

Authors: Bert Esselink.
Paperback, 490 pages
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Co
Publication Date: 2000-09
Edition: Revised

Reviews :

    A Practical Guide to Localization was written for translators, localization engineers, testing engineers, desktop publishers, project managers, and anyone else who may be involved in the release of multilingual products. In this second edition, translators can learn more on localizing software, online help, and documentation files, and on the latest translation technology tools. Localization engineers will learn all about developing, engineering and testing software and online help projects. For project managers, there is all the information needed in planning translation or localization projects, finding resources, and ensuring the quality of deliverables. New to this second, fully updated and revised edition are chapters on internationalization, desktop publishing, and software quality assurance.

The book has been designed as both a reference work and a teaching tool.

Bert Esselink has been active in localization for over a decade. After graduating in technical translation and taking university classes in programming and computational linguistics, he worked for several years as software localizer, localization engineer, and technical project manager at International Software Products. In 1996 he joined ALPNET in Amsterdam as localization manager, before taking on the role of globalization manager, developing internal production quality standards. In January 2000 Bert joined Lionbridge to head up their globalization consulting services....

Authors: Michael Batty.
Paperback, 542 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2007-09-30


Reviews :

    As urban planning moves from a centralized, top-down approach to a decentralized, bottom-up perspective, our conception of urban systems is changing. In Cities and Complexity, Michael Batty offers a comprehensive view of urban dynamics in the context of complexity theory, presenting models that demonstrate how complexity theory can embrace a myriad of processes and elements that combine into organic wholes. He argues that bottom-up processes—in which the outcomes are always uncertain—can combine with new forms of geometry associated with fractal patterns and chaotic dynamics to provide theories that are applicable to highly complex systems such as cities.

Batty begins with models based on cellular automata (CA), simulating urban dynamics through the local actions of automata. He then introduces agent-based models (ABM), in which agents are mobile and move between locations. These models relate to many scales, from the scale of the street to patterns and structure at the scale of the urban region. Finally, Batty develops applications of all these models to specific urban situations, discussing concepts of criticality, threshold, surprise, novelty, and phase transition in the context of spatial developments. Every theory and model presented in the book is developed through examples that range from the simplified and hypothetical to the actual. Deploying extensive visual, mathematical, and textual material, Cities and Complexity will be read both by urban researchers and by complexity theorists with an interest in new kinds of computational models.

Sample chapters and examples from the book, and other related material, can be found at http://www.complexcity.info....

Authors: James F. Broderick and Darren W. Miller.
Paperback, 472 pages
Publisher: CyberAge Books
Publication Date: 2007-05-15


Reviews :

    The famous slogan of one major TV news network, More people get their news ... than from any other source, now applies to the Internet. But where can you find the news you need, how can you gauge its veracity, and how can anyone keep up? The answers are in this unique book by a professor of journalism and a working reporter. Jim Broderick and Darren Miller have written an A to Z guide to the best and worst news and information sites, featuring 100 in-depth, critical reviews and a 4-star rating system. You ll discover dozens of reliable sites that meet your needs, learn what to expect before you log on, and gain a reporter s hardnosed perspective on the motives and bias behind each resource. The supporting Web site is a virtual portal to the world of online news....

Authors: Bruce A. Bimber. Richard Davis.
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 2003-09-11


Reviews :

    After a self-assured John F. Kennedy bested a visibly shaky Richard Nixon in their famous 1960 debates, political television, it was said, would henceforth determine elections. Today, many claim the Internet will be the latest medium to revolutionize electoral politics. Candidates invest heavily in web and email campaigns to reach prospective voters, as well as to communicate with journalists, potential donors, and political activists. Do these efforts influence voters, expand democracy, increase the coverage of political issues, or mobilize a shrinking and apathetic electorate?
Campaigning Online answers these questions by looking at how candidates present themselves online and how voters respond to their efforts-including whether voters learn from candidates' websites and whether voters' views are affected by what they see. Although the Internet will not lead to a revolution in democracy, it will, Bimber and Davis argue, have consequences: reinforcing messages, mobilizing activists, and strengthening partisans' views. Reporting on a wealth of new data drawn from national and state-wide surveys, laboratory experiments, interviews with campaign staff, and analysis of web sites themselves, Campaigning Online draws the most complete picture of the role of campaign websites in American elections to date....

Authors: Siva Vaidhyanathan.
Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication Date: 2005-05-10


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Whitfield Diffie. Susan Landau.
Hardcover, 400 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2007-05-31
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    Awarded the 1998 Donald McGannon Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Policy Research. and Received the IEEE-USA Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding of the Profession.

Telecommunication has never been perfectly secure. The Cold War culture of recording devices in telephone receivers and bugged embassy offices has been succeeded by a post-9/11 world of NSA wiretaps and demands for data retention. Although the 1990s battle for individual and commercial freedom to use cryptography was won, growth in the use of cryptography has been slow. Meanwhile, regulations requiring that the computer and communication industries build spying into their systems for government convenience have increased rapidly. The application of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act has expanded beyond the intent of Congress to apply to voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other modern data services; attempts are being made to require ISPs to retain their data for years in case the government wants it; and data mining techniques developed for commercial marketing applications are being applied to widespread surveillance of the population.

In Privacy on the Line, Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau strip away the hype surrounding the policy debate over privacy to examine the national security, law enforcement, commercial, and civil liberties issues. They discuss the social function of privacy, how it underlies a democratic society, and what happens when it is lost. This updated and expanded edition revises their original—and prescient—discussions of both policy and technology in light of recent controversies over NSA spying and other government threats to communications privacy....

Authors: Peter, CISA, CISSP Gregory. Michael A. Simon.
Paperback, 292 pages
Publisher: For Dummies
Publication Date: 2008-07-28


Reviews :

    What is biometrics? Whether you’re just curious about how biometrics can benefit society or you need to learn how to integrate biometrics with an existing security system in your organization, Biometrics For Dummies can help.

Here’s a friendly introduction to biometrics — the science of identifying humans based on unique physical characteristics. With the government’s use of biometrics — for example, biometric passport readers — and application of the technology for law enforcement, biometrics is growing more popular among security experts. Biometrics For Dummies explains biometric technology, explores biometrics policy and privacy issues with biometrics, and takes a look at where the science is heading. You’ll discover:

• How pattern recognition and fingerprint recognition are used
• The many vulnerabilities of biometric systems and how to guard against them
• How various countries are handling the privacy issues and what can be done to protect citizens’ privacy
• How a scan of the palm, veins in the hand, and sonar imagery establish identity
• What it takes to fully authenticate a signature
• How gait, speech, linguistic analysis, and other types of biometric identification come into play
• The criteria for setting up an implementation plan
• How to use authentication, authorization, and access principles

Written by a pair of security experts, Biometrics For Dummies gives you the basics in an easy-to-understand format that doesn’t scrimp on substance. You’ll get up to speed and enjoy getting there!...

Authors: Brian S. McWilliams.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Publication Date: 2004-09
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    More than sixty percent of today's email traffic is spam, according to email filtering firm Brightmail. This year alone, five trillion spam messages will clog Internet users in-boxes, costing society an estimated $10-billion in lost productivity, filtering software, and other expenses. Spam Kings: The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and %*@)# Enlargements is the first book to expose the shadowy world of the people responsible for the junk email problem. Author and veteran investigative journalist Brian S. McWilliams delivers a compelling account of the cat-and-mouse game played by spam entrepreneurs in search of easy fortunes and those who are trying to stop them. Spam Kings chronicles the evolution of Davis Wolfgang Hawke, a notorious neo-Nazi leader (Jewish-born) who got into junk email in 1999. Using Hawke as a case study, Spam Kings traces the twenty-year-old neophyte's rise in the spam trade to his emergence as a major player in the lucrative penis pill market--a business that would eventually make him a millionaire and the target of lawsuits from AOL and others. Spam Kings also tells the parallel story of Susan Gunn, a computer novice in California who is reluctantly drawn into the spam wars and eventually joins a group of anti-spam activists. Her volunteer sleuth work puts her on a collision course with Hawke and other spammers, who try to wreak revenge on the antis. You'll also meet other cyber-vigilantes who have taken up the fight against spammers as well as the cast of quirky characters who comprise Hawke's business associates. The book sheds light on the technical sleight-of-hand--forged headers, open relays, harvesting tools, and bulletproof hosting--and other sleazy business practices that spammers use; the work of top anti-spam attorneys; the surprising new partnership developing between spammers and computer hackers; and the rise of a new breed of computer viruses designed to turn the PCs of innocent bystanders into secret spam factories....