Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age
Brad Smith / Carol Browne
The development of the IT industry over several decades has transformed modern reality. We now live and work in a digital world, and leading IT companies own more personal data than any government on the planet. The ability to collect and process huge amounts of information has become a powerful tool for progress and a formidable weapon at the same time. But who really controls it? The authors of this book, Microsoft executives, reveal to readers the most pressing problems that IT companies face and talk about their way of solving them. How do we find the right balance of public safety and privacy in this new era? How to protect yourself from attackers who use new technologies to cyber-attack entire countries, corporations or the private lives of citizens? Can we create a world where our children can find work? Will we be able to control the emerging new world at all? The ability to collect huge amounts of data about users is a double-edged sword. And how IT companies solve the most complex ethical problems depends on the structure of the world in which we have to live.
