When I first began attempting to narrow down the topic, privacy in the digital age, I ran into problems because everywhere I looked for research I was getting the same generic results. At this point I decided that I needed to add in some keywords to try and get different results. I continued to fish around google.com and other search engines, through repetitive information and I decided that the importance of this topic is protecting ones self from letting others see information they had not intended. Therefore I decided that my research would go towards deciding what people expect to keep private, and then deciding how they can do this in such an advanced digital age.
What is expected from the word confidentiality and how can that be achieved in the present digital age?
When I decided to look for books on my topic, I went to Randall Library. Like when searching on the internet, I needed to decide which keywords would bring the results that I was looking for. At first I searched using “confidentiality and internet,” which was not a successful search and I only received one result. I then decided to use what I had learned in class and searched “(confidential*) or (private*) and (internet) or (digital age).” Once again I was unsuccessful, so I went back to the broad category, and looked through the keywords to decide my next search. The final successful search was, “(privacy or libert*) and (internet or digital age)”.
Zittrain, Jonathan. The future of the Internet and how to stop it. Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2008.
Jonathan Zittrain, the author of The future of the Internet and how to stop it, wrote this book for internet and technology users. He writes not only so the readers can relate to him, but so that the readers can understand and relate to each other. The book first talks about how the internet has risen into society, and then it discuss some lessons that the readers should have taken away from their time on the internet. He then discusses strategies and solutions for stopping the risks of the future of the internet. It was very impressive how Zittrain looks at a generative future, not just today, because technology is always changing. This novel is relevant to my research hypothesis because it discusses the internet in whole first, to help answer the question of what one needs to keep confidential. It also provides insight into the second part of my hypothesis because it offers advice of steps to take once you have realized that the internet is not all good.
Solove, Daniel. The future of reputation: gossip, rumor, and privacy on the Internet. Connecticut: Yale
University Press, 2007.
Daniel Solove, the author of The future of reputation: gossip, rumor, and privacy on the Internet, writes to anyone who has ever or will ever be slandered by the internet, or has slandered someone else, intentionally or accidentally. This book looks at all different aspects of the internet, such as blogs and chat rooms, instead of focusing purely on webpages. The dark side of the internet is shown and implications are made to help protect oneself from future employers, neighbors, and even family members. Critically, Solove should have looked more at the bright side also, because this book seems to make people paranoid and over protective, because only the dark side is focused on. This will be very relevant for research on how confidentially can be protected in the digital age because it makes me people think twice about what they are posting on the internet, and shows alternatives to protect themselves.
