Synopses & Reviews
One of the world’s leading authorities on global security, Marc Goodman takes readers deep into the digital underground to expose the alarming ways criminals, corporations, and even countries are using new and emerging technologies against you — and how this makes everyone more vulnerable than ever imagined.
Technological advances have benefited our world in immeasurable ways, but there is an ominous flip side: our technology can be turned against us. Hackers can activate baby monitors to spy on families, thieves are analyzing social media posts to plot home invasions, and stalkers are exploiting the GPS on smart phones to track their victims’ every move. We all know today’s criminals can steal identities, drain online bank accounts, and wipe out computer servers, but that’s just the beginning. To date, no computer has been created that could not be hacked — a sobering fact given our radical dependence on these machines for everything from our nation’s power grid to air traffic control to financial services.
Yet, as ubiquitous as technology seems today, just over the horizon is a tidal wave of scientific progress that will leave our heads spinning. If today’s Internet is the size of a golf ball, tomorrow’s will be the size of the sun. Welcome to the Internet of Things, a living, breathing, global information grid where every physical object will be online. But with greater connections come greater risks. Implantable medical devices such as pacemakers can be hacked to deliver a lethal jolt of electricity and a car’s brakes can be disabled at high speed from miles away. Meanwhile, 3-D printers can produce AK-47s, bioterrorists can download the recipe for Spanish flu, and cartels are using fleets of drones to ferry drugs across borders.
With explosive insights based upon a career in law enforcement and counterterrorism, Marc Goodman takes readers on a vivid journey through the darkest recesses of the Internet. Reading like science fiction, but based in science fact, Future Crimes explores how bad actors are primed to hijack the technologies of tomorrow, including robotics, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. These fields hold the power to create a world of unprecedented abundance and prosperity. But the technological bedrock upon which we are building our common future is deeply unstable and, like a house of cards, can come crashing down at any moment.
Future Crimes provides a mind-blowing glimpse into the dark side of technological innovation and the unintended consequences of our connected world. Goodman offers a way out with clear steps we must take to survive the progress unfolding before us. Provocative, thrilling, and ultimately empowering, Future Crimes will serve as an urgent call to action that shows how we can take back control over our own devices and harness technology’s tremendous power for the betterment of humanity — before it’s too late.
Review
“OMG, this is a wakeup call. The outlaws are running faster than the architects. Use this book to shake up the companies you buy from, the device makers, telecom carriers, and governments at all levels. Demand that they pay attention to the realities of our new world as outlined within this thorough and deep book. Marc Goodman will startle you with the ingenuity of the bad guys. I'm a technological optimist. Now I am an eyes-wide-open optimist.” Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired Magazine and bestselling author of What Technology Wants
Review
"The hacks and heists detailed in Future Crimes are the stuff of thrillers, but unfortunately, the world of cybercrime is all too real. There could be no more sure-footed or knowledgeable companion than Marc Goodman on this guided tour of the underworld of the Internet. Everyone — and the business world especially — should heed his advice.” Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of Drive and To Sell is Human
Review
"Future Crimes reads like a collection of unusually inventive, terrifying plots conjured up by the world's most ingenious science fiction writer... except that almost every story in this goosebump-raising book is happening all around us right now. It's a masterful page-turner that warns of a hundred worst case scenarios you've never thought of, while also — thank goodness — offering bold and clever strategies to thwart them." Jane McGonigal, New York Times bestselling author of Reality is Broken
About the Author
Marc Goodman has spent a career in law enforcement and technology. He was appointed as futurist-in-residence with the FBI, worked as a senior adviser to Interpol, and served as a street police officer. As the founder of the Future Crimes Institute and the Chair for Policy, Law, and Ethics at Silicon Valley’s Singularity University, he continues to investigate the intriguing and often terrifying intersection of science and security, uncovering nascent threats and combating the darker sides of technology.