Protecting Yourself Online: The Definitive Resource on Safety and Privacy in Cyberspace

Too many cyberspace pundits fail to deliver constructive ideas on how to deal with issues of safety, privacy, and censorship online. Protecting Yourself Online, penned by members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), is a splendid exception that makes good on its claim to be the definitive resource for practical solutions to these problems.

The authors cover a lot of territory in a concise, direct manner. Among the topics are free expression and online censorship, reconciling individual liberties with community standards, secure communications and online commerce, and the protection of intellectual property online. One excellent chapter deals with netiquette, spam, hackers, computer viruses, and flames. A major focus is placed on recognizing online spoofs and scams, whether it be an e-mail advertisement that is too good to be true or people who aren't who they say they are.

Additional topics include protecting yourself from spam and mail bombs, issues of government control online, and how can you protect your personal information (including credit-card numbers, medical information, and passwords) by using encryption and authentication. The book also delves into dealing with e-mail flames, children on the Internet, and even how the U.S. Constitution might apply over an international network. Each issue is discussed calmly, rationally, and without sensationalism.

The EFF, founded in 1990 as a nonprofit organization to defend civil liberties and rights in cyberspace, has consistently been at the forefront of the debate on freedom and responsibility online. Perhaps its most famous case was the campaign against online censorship that started in reaction to the Communications Decency Act's initial passage. --Elizabeth Lewis