The September 2008 Scientific American is a special issue on The Future of Privacy. The issue has a good range or articles that all look like they are well worth reading and touch on all of the theme in our new MURI project on assured information sharing.

• Privacy in an Age of Terabytes and Terror. Peter Brown. Introduction to SciAm’s issue on Privacy. Our jittery state since 9/11, coupled with the Internet revolution, is shifting the boundaries between public interest and “the right to be let alone.”
• Data Fusion: The Ups and Downs of All-Encompassing Digital Profiles. Simson L. Garfinkel. Mashing everyone’s personal data, from credit card bills to cell phone logs, into one all-encompassing digital dossier is the stuff of an Orwellian nightmare. But it is not as easy as most people assume.
• Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy?. Daniel J. Solove. Young people share the most intimate details of personal life on social-networking Web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, portending a realignment of the public and the private.
• How Loss of Privacy May Mean Loss of Security. Esther Dyson. Many issues posing as questions of privacy can turn out to be matters of security, health policy, insurance or self-presentation. It is useful to clarify those issues before focusing on privacy itself.
• Cryptography: How to Keep Your Secrets Safe. Anna Lysyanskaya. A versatile assortment of computational techniques can protect the privacy of your information and online activities to essentially any degree and nuance you desire.
• Internet Eavesdropping: A Brave New World of Wiretapping. Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau. As telephone conversations have moved to the Internet, so have those who want to listen in. But the technology needed to do so would entail a dangerous expansion of the government’s surveillance powers.
• How RFID Tags Could Be Used to Track Unsuspecting People. Katherine Albrecht. A privacy activist argues that the devices pose new security risks to those who carry them, often unwittingly.
• Beyond Fingerprinting: Is Biometrics the Best Bet for Fighting Identity Theft?. Anil K. Jain and Sharath Pankanti. Security systems based on anatomical and behavioral characteristics may offer the best defense against identity theft.
• Digital Surveillance: Tools of the Spy Trade. Steven Ashley. Night-vision cameras, biometric sensors and other gadgets already give snoops access to private spaces. Coming soon: palm-size “bug-bots”.
• Tougher Laws Needed to Protect Your Genetic Privacy. Mark A. Rothstein. In spite of recent legislation, tougher laws are needed to prevent insurers and employers from discriminating on the basis of genetic tests.
• Industry Roundtable: Experts Discuss Improving Online Security. Experts from Sun, Adobe, Microsoft and MacAfee discuss how to protect against more numerous and sophisticated attacks by hackers; security professionals call for upgraded technology, along with more attention to human and legal factors.

Related posts:

1. Technology Review special issue on Web 2.0
2. Tim Berners-Lee on protecting the Web in the December Scientific American
3. JWS special issue on Semantic Web and Policy (free sample issue)
4. CFP: JWS special issue on semantic search
5. JWS special issue on The Web of Data