Writing in plain language for general readers, Vamosi, a computer security analyst and a contributing editor at PCWorld, explains what we're really signing up for when we log in and reveals the secret lives of our electronic devices, offering a commonsense approach for protecting ourselves. The book is about hardware hacking and new kinds of identity fraud: how our mobile phone conversations can be intercepted, how our credit cards and driver's licenses can be copied at a distance. The author travels from the streets of New York and LA to Johannesburg and Berlin, to talk to people who have experienced firsthand how gadgets can betray us and to examine the effects of technology in the Third World. He recommends the addition of basic authentication and strong encryption to most hardware to reduce the vulnerabilities described in the book, but notes that hardware manufacturers have so far shown little interest in securing their gadgets. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Read Less