An Honest Review — The Art Of Invisibility(Kevin Mitnick & Robert Vamosi)
This book is a great read for the average person. If you’re in IT and at an intermediate level in your career, a summary might be enough. However, if you’re just starting out in IT or work in a different field, reading the full book could be worthwhile.
I’m not trying to discourage anyone from reading this book — by all means, go for it if you’re interested. My point is that if you work in IT, you’re likely already familiar with many of the concepts and examples the author covers. While you might find a few valuable insights, most of the ideas will probably be things you already know.
While I have a deep respect for Mitnick’s knowledge and contributions to the field, my review will focus on both the strengths and weaknesses of this book from my perspective, naturally. My goal is to provide an honest perspective — highlighting what works well and where I believe the book falls short. Whether you’re considering reading it or just looking for different viewpoints, I hope this review helps you decide if The Art of Invisibility is the right book for you. Of course, readers are more than welcome to share their own perspectives and challenge mine.
## Premises Of The Book
The whole premises of the book are:
* It is practically inevitable to stop companies from collecting our data. But this is not the problem, the issue lies in what these companies do with our data and with whom they share it.
* Privacy is like an onion, every layer or security measure you can commit to, adds more security while decreasing convenience. It is up to the reader up to which layer you are willing to commit to maintain your anonymity. As you will see, to become anonymous (again there are levels of anonymity) you really need to follow a strict set of rules, and one tiny error can give you away.
## Where The Book Falls Short
The book is full of stories that makes the reader aware of the problem that companies collect and share our data with third parties. Mitnick also shares some stories where the law enforcement managed to captured the “bad guy” because of an informatic error that led the police to him.
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