Future Crimes Book Summary - Future Crimes Book explained in key points

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Name: Future Crimes
Rating: 4.1 (33 reviews)
Author: Marc Goodman

Marc Goodman

Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It

4.1 (33 ratings)

18 mins

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Future Crimes
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What’s in it for me? Discover how modern technology is threatening our integrity and opening up a whole new world of crime.

How often would you say you look at your smartphone every day? Your Facebook profile? Your Twitter account? Almost certainly more often than you’d think. The influence of the internet and the cloud on almost all areas of society is massive – and, mostly, inestimably beneficial.

However, as these blinks will show you, there is a dark side to this force. It’s made possible hitherto unimagined forms of crime. And it isn’t just hackers in the murky waters of cyberspace that pose a threat to our integrity and safety. Companies like Google, Facebook and even Angry Birds play a role in this, too. That is, unless we read the fine print in the user agreements. But, honestly, when is the last time you read one of those? Luckily, there are other ways to protect ourselves. These blinks will show you how.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

what Angry Birds knows about you;
why writing your novel in Google Docs might be a bad idea; and
why your city’s Sewer Department maybe shouldn’t be connected to the internet.

Having merged the “online” and the “offline” worlds, can we safely log out?

We’ve come a long way since the 1950s, when a single computer could barely fit inside a small building. Compare that with the world of today, where the iPhone in your pocket has more computing power than all of NASA during the Apollo 11 moon landing.

But nowadays, technology is more than machines and gadgets. Rather, it’s an essential part of our lives – so essential, in fact, that over 80 percent of us check our phones within the first few minutes of waking up. And then we keep the same phones within three feet of us at all times.

Our attachment to our phones can also be highly emotional. According to one US study, more than 90 percent of Americans feel high levels of anxiety if they forget their phone at home.

Similarly, research from 2013 showed that Americans were spending more than five hours online every single day! We book our doctor’s appointments, check our bank statements and health insurance bills online, and browse Facebook and Amazon without considering the digital footprint we’re leaving behind.

Often, our obsession with technology makes us forget that we’re putting our lives in the hands of software that can easily be hacked. This ignorance (or negligence) comes at a price.

One study showed that, about 75 percent of the time, hackers successfully infiltrated the devices they attacked within mere minutes. This could in part be due to the fact that in 2015 “123456” and “password” remained the most popular passwords.

To combat this, many companies have begun implementing multifactor authentication methods (e.g., using your password and a one-time code sent to you via SMS) to improve security. But you should nonetheless change your passwords regularly, keep them over 20 digits long and include numbers, symbols and spaces. Avoid being counted among the 50 percent of people who use the same password for all their online accounts.

Smartphones, Smart Cars, Smart Watches, but what about Smart Us?

We take our smartphones everywhere: to the toilet, to the gym and even to bed. You could say that our smartphones know us pretty well. They have plenty of data on our habits and our relationships, but how well is that data protected? As it turns out, you aren’t the only one with access to your personal information.

In fact, your mobile phone acts a lot like a spy who knows exactly what you’re doing, where you’re doing it, who you’re doing it with, not to mention for how long and how often.

“Free” in the online world is a very high price you will eventually have to pay.

So how is it that Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn can all offer their services for free? Most people assume it’s because of the money they make from advertisements. But that’s only part of it. In actuality, you aren’t really their customer at all. Rather, you’re their product and primary source of income.

Today, everything is connected via iCloud or Google products. But that convenience comes at a cost: our privacy.

As the internet grows exponentially, so does the scale of crimes committed by hackers, terrorists and governments.

Hacking has come a long way since 1971, when Apple founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs hacked into phone networks and sold hacking devices called “blue boxes” to their fellow students at UC Berkeley.

Nowadays, hackers understand that whoever possesses information has the upper hand in “the game.”

We paint a huge target on ourselves by posting information and pictures we may later regret.

We know the stereotype of a hacker: a 16-year-old computer whiz in a dimly lit room, hacking victims for the thrill of it. But according to a study by the Rand Corporation, 80 percent of hackers actually work for a company or government, and are closer to the age of 30. Indeed, cybercrime is much more organized, meaning we have to be extremely careful about what we post online.

When you post about your upcoming vacation or weekend beach getaway on Facebook and Twitter, for example, you’re actually warmly inviting organized burglars to come and rob your home in your absence.

The best (or the worst) of the internet is yet to come.

Imagine a world where your alarm clock could connect with traffic cameras to adjust your alarm based on congestion estimates. Or where you didn’t need to ask your children whether they’d brushed their teeth because their toothbrushes would send a message to your phone once they had done it.

While this may sound like a futuristic Hollywood movie, the technology is already here. In fact, Cisco has predicted that there will be 50 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020, compared to the 13 billion in 2013. The trend has been to connect any and all devices in the hope that it will make our lives easier.

Having critical infrastructure connected to the internet leaves us without a plan B in times of emergency.

While the internet has helped us to “modernize” our infrastructure, it has also put us at greater risk. Our railways, gas pipelines, 911-dispatch systems, air traffic controls, stock markets, drinking water, streetlights, hospitals, sanitation systems and electrical grids all depend on the internet to function properly. We have to ask ourselves: Is that a good idea?

Hacking any of these critical infrastructural systems could have catastrophic consequences. Targeting a city’s electricity grid, for example, would leave that city in complete chaos. There would be no lights, no elevators, no ATMs. Garage doors wouldn’t open, traffic lights wouldn't work, air traffic control would be unable to contact the airplanes in the sky. There would be no cellphones and no internet.

We should never allow technology to have more control in our decisions than we do.

There’s no denying that newly emerging technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, genetics, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and 3D printers will have an unimaginable impact on our lives. Whether these technologies will have a positive or negative effect on society depends much on who controls them.

Ultimately, we decide what the consequences of this technology will be. Physicist Stephen Hawking and entrepreneur Elon Musk, for instance, have both argued that the rapid development of technology in areas such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and synthetic biology will forever alter humanity’s path. There will simply be no turning back.

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What is Future Crimes about?

Future Crimes (2015) lucidly explores the dangers inherent in using today’s highly interconnected web of technologies. Through carelessness or ignorance, we make huge amounts of personal information available to criminals who would love nothing more than to exploit us.

Who should read Future Crimes?

Anyone who uses the internet on a daily basis
People who use social media on their smartphones
Those who believe technology will solve all our problems

About the Author

Marc Goodman is an FBI futurist who has consulted organizations such as INTERPOL, the United Nations, NATO, the LAPD and US government on issues ranging from security to business to international affairs. He also serves as Global Security Advisor and Chair of Policy and Law at the NASA- and Google-sponsored Silicon Valley’s Singularity University.

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