The Secret Life of Data
Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Todd Ross
About this listen
In The Secret Life of Data, Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert explore the many unpredictable, and often surprising, ways in which data surveillance, AI, and the constant presence of algorithms impact our culture and society in the age of global networks. The authors build on this basic premise: no matter what form data takes, and what purpose we think it’s being used for, data will always have a secret life. How this data will be used, by other people in other times and places, has profound implications for every aspect of our lives—from our intimate relationships to our professional lives to our political systems.
With the secret uses of data in mind, Sinnreich and Gilbert interview dozens of experts to explore a broad range of scenarios and contexts—from the playful to the profound to the problematic. Unlike most books about data and society that focus on the short-term effects of our immense data usage, The Secret Life of Data focuses primarily on the long-term consequences of humanity’s recent rush toward digitizing, storing, and analyzing every piece of data about ourselves and the world we live in. The authors advocate for “slow fixes” regarding our relationship to data, such as creating new laws and regulations, ethics and aesthetics, and models of production for our datafied society.
Cutting through the hype and hopelessness that so often inform discussions of data and society, The Secret Life of Data clearly and straightforwardly demonstrates how listeners can play an active part in shaping how digital technology influences their lives and the world at large.
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Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the 20th century. His inventions, patents, and theoretical work formed the basis of modern AC electricity, and contributed to the development of radio and television. Like his competitor Thomas Edison, Tesla was one of America's first celebrity scientists, enjoying the company of New York high society and dazzling the likes of Mark Twain with his electrical demonstrations. An astute self-promoter and gifted showman, he cultivated a public image of the eccentric genius.
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A detailed examination of Tesla's work
- By Jean on 02-01-14
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No Place to Hide
- Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
- By: Glenn Greenwald
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security....
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Best Read in Print Format
- By Alfredo Ramirez on 11-22-14
By: Glenn Greenwald
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Surveillance Valley
- The Secret Military History of the Internet
- By: Yasha Levine
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fascinating book, investigative reporter Yasha Levine uncovers the secret origins of the Internet, tracing it back to a Pentagon counterinsurgency surveillance project. With deep research, skilled storytelling, and provocative arguments, Surveillance Valley will change the way you think about the news - and the device on which you read it.
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Profound look at the internet and surveillance
- By stuartjash on 04-06-18
By: Yasha Levine
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Glow Kids
- How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids - and How to Break the Trance
- By: Nicholas Kardaras PhD
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In Glow Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras will examine how technology - more specifically, age-inappropriate screen tech, with all of its glowing ubiquity - has profoundly affected the brains of an entire generation. Brain imaging research is showing that stimulating glowing screens are as dopaminergic (dopamine activating) to the brain’s pleasure center as sex. And a growing mountain of clinical research correlates screen tech with disorders like ADHD, addiction, anxiety, depression, increased aggression, and even psychosis.
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Fear Mongering - a modern day Mazes and Monsters
- By Veronica on 11-03-20
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Cyber Wars
- Hacks That Shocked the Business World
- By: Charles Arthur
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Cyber Wars gives you the dramatic inside stories of some of the world's biggest cyber attacks. These are the game-changing hacks that make organisations around the world tremble and leaders stop and consider just how safe they really are. Charles Arthur provides a gripping account of why each hack happened, what techniques were used, what the consequences were and how they could have been prevented. Cyber attacks are some of the most frightening threats currently facing business leaders, and this book provides a deep insight into understanding how they work.
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For the security professional and average joe
- By Quella on 01-11-19
By: Charles Arthur
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Millennium
- From Religion to Revolution: How Civilization Has Changed over a Thousand Years
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In Millennium, best-selling historian Ian Mortimer takes the listener on a whirlwind tour of the last 10 centuries of Western history. It is a journey into a past vividly brought to life and bursting with ideas, that pits one century against another in his quest to measure which century saw the greatest change. We journey from a time when there was a fair chance of your village being burned to the ground by invaders - and dried human dung was a recommended cure for cancer - to a world in which explorers sailed into the unknown and civilizations came into conflict.
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Bad ending - literally
- By John Gordon on 12-14-16
By: Ian Mortimer
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The Book of Satoshi
- The Collected Writings of Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto, 1st Edition
- By: Phil Champagne
- Narrated by: Stephanie Murphy
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The Book of Satoshi, the collected writings of Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of the bitcoin. The foreword was written by Jeff Berwick.
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Great historic read that'll teach the blockchain
- By Peter Hanson on 05-19-16
By: Phil Champagne
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Tor Darknet Bundle (5 in 1) Master the Art of Invisibility (Bitcoins, Hacking, Kali Linux)
- By: Lance Henderson
- Narrated by: James C. Lewis
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The best five books on anonymity in existence! Want to surf the web anonymously? Cloak yourself in shadow on the Deep Web or The Hidden Wiki? I will show you how to become a ghost in the machine - leaving no tracks back to your ISP - whether on the Deep Web or regular Internet. This audiobook covers it all: encrypting your files, securing your PC, masking your Online footsteps with Tor, VPNs, Freenet, and bitcoins, and all while giving you peace of mind with total 100 percent anonymity.
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Technical deficiencies
- By Byzantine Technologies LLC on 07-16-19
By: Lance Henderson
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Super Pumped
- The Battle for Uber
- By: Mike Isaac
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, Mike Isaac
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, set against the rapid upheaval in Silicon Valley during the mobile era. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a pause-resisting story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior, that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic 12-month periods in American corporate history.
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A forced narrative and a bad version of Bad Blood
- By Benji on 09-09-19
By: Mike Isaac
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Prediction Machines
- The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
- By: Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Artificial intelligence does the seemingly impossible - driving cars, trading stocks, and teaching children. But facing the sea change that AI will bring can be paralyzing. How should companies set strategies, governments design policies, and people plan their lives for a world so different from what we know? In Prediction Machines, three eminent economists recast the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction. With this single, masterful stroke, they lift the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype and show how basic tools from economics provide clarity about the AI revolution and a basis for action by CEOs, managers, policy makers, investors, and entrepreneurs.
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Not sure what I was expecting, but underwhelmed
- By William J Brown on 09-27-18
By: Ajay Agrawal, and others
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The Box
- How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
- By: Marc Levinson
- Narrated by: Adam Lofbomm
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried 58 shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about.
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Fascinating Topic sometimes lost in minutiae
- By zombie64 on 07-15-14
By: Marc Levinson
What listeners say about The Secret Life of Data
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Phil Dejean
- 05-23-24
Tackles Daunting Subject with Aplomb and Elan
I grabbed this book originally to confirm my biases and paranoias about big data and how i should pack up and live in a cabin in the woods but these talented writers talked me off the ledge with relateable, amusing anecdotes, intelligent, well informed interviews, laying out in-depth research in conversational plain speak so i wasn't confused or dashing to the dictionary ever paragraph. it did keep me on the edge of my seat and It even left me with (dare i say) a feeling of hope for the future. I also have to give props to the reader who was personable and gave FM Deejay/ Podcaster vibes that was easy on the ears and brain. This book would make a great Netflix documentary. I also have the physical version of this book so I can go back and underline passages and do further research on some ideas that were touched upon. Very curious to in a couple of years how close predictions pondered about here come to pass. Time will tell.
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- TexaSaint
- 09-28-24
Good info crushed by beyond the pale bias
This book really contains some pretty important topics and information related to data protection, privacy, etc.
Unfortunately, the authors have such an over-the-top bias when it comes to presenting this information that it severely distracts from what they’re trying to convey.
Usually, it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other an authors “world view” leanings.
The problem with this book is that literally EVERY example doesn’t just ‘lean’ one way, it flat out topples and falls in a ‘massive avalanche’ one way.
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