Future Crimes

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

By: Marc Goodman

Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Marc Goodman

Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES and WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER

ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2015

One of the world’s leading authorities on global security, Marc Goodman takes listeners 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.

©2015 Marc Goodman (P)2015 Randon House Audio

Critic reviews

“Addictive….[I]ntroduces readers to this brave new world of technology, where robbers have been replaced by hackers, and victims include nearly anyone on the Web… He presents his myriad hard-to-imagine cybercrime examples in the kind of matter-of-fact voice he probably perfected as an investigator. He clearly wants us never to look at our cellphones or Facebook pages in the same way again — and in this, Future Crimes succeeds marvelously.”— The Washington Post

“Excellent and timely…Mr. Goodman is no neo-Luddite. He thinks innovations could ultimately lead to self-healing computer networks that detect hackers and automatically make repairs to shut them out. He rightly urges the private and public sectors to work more closely together, ‘crowdsourcing’ ideas and know-how…The best time to start tackling future crimes is now.” — The Economist

"This is a must-read!" -- Larry King

great book but scary

this is a must read. i was completely unaware of like 90% of whats in it!

Aweking

This book open your eyes. Everything you don't want to know about IT, security and feature we heading.

JUST simply Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you could sum up Future Crimes in three words, what would they be?

Dont ever join or use Facebook... Google ... Yahoo ... WOW

What was one of the most memorable moments of Future Crimes?

What the product really are

What does Robertson Dean and Marc Goodman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

good naration -- even and factual

If you could give Future Crimes a new subtitle, what would it be?

We should run scared

Any additional comments?

none

Great way to enlighten the public

This was a great subject and presentation. The only critical comment is that there are some big leaps from facts to conclusion like the US govt. is collecting heads of state DNA to custom make viruses to target them. Even with a few of these leaps of faith the rest of the content and substance is invaluable to anyone using the Internet.

everyone should read/listen to this book!

great book. everyone should read/listen to this book. it is an eye opener! stay safe!

A very good primer on cybercrime-does not address the current level of effort to combat it

This book should be mandatory reading for all IT professionals. It is an excellent introduction on the many ways Crime Inc. will try to take advantage of the unprepared. The main omission that I see in this book is that it does not address the efforts underway by many organizations to stop cyber crime including NIST, HIPAA, HITECH, PCI, and many others (there are way too many to list here!).

Being an IT professional for over 20 years I am quite the Familiar with many challenges of securing technology. I found this book to have a lot of new information and some good commonsense solutions.

Do not give this book to someone who is already paranoid!

Lots of good/frightening info

Mr Goodman provides excellent info on the threats and bad actor behavior throughout. Also gives info on the good actors and reiterates that the good guys (law enforcement, etc.) can't protect us from ourselves (I.e. When seconds count, first responders are only minutes away). It is up to each of us to protect ourselves, friends, business, etc. Gives good tips at the end so make sure you finish and don't get so discouraged that you give up in the middle.

profound and very interesting

Easy to listen to;all executives should read in order to support their IT staff!! I'm a coder by trade and find the most difficult to instruct are the humans.

Scary book

I am glad I read this book. Very informative, but more scary! I am grateful to the author for opening my eyes to these threats and giving not only some way to protect myself but also some hope for the future.

Great in-depth tour of computer security

Would you consider the audio edition of Future Crimes to be better than the print version?

Yes, easier to listen to is. There isn't much jargon, like MAC addresses being read, that you can't understand.

Who was your favorite character and why?

NA

Have you listened to any of Robertson Dean and Marc Goodman ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, the reader is awesome for this topic.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

"Security"

Any additional comments?

Great book for people in and not in IT. I am a Linux system admin and the book was easy to understand without oversimplifying. Great tour of computer security now and in the future, and what to do about it.