Permanent Record

I thought for a long time about whether a book review of "Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden, as an autobiography, really belongs here – but in the end I decided it does. Why? Because we talk a lot about business success and the opportunities of digital transformation. The central driver of digital transformation is technology! And precisely these technologies (which enable us to do so much) also bring dangers: hacks, cybercrime and institutions that exploit our everyday digital helpers to spy on us, manipulate us and influence us. Where there is light, there is always shadow, and that is exactly why I mention "Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden here.

It makes no difference whether you are a private individual or a company: the dangers of the digital world affect us all, and that is why we should all engage with them. Why I recommend Edward Snowden's book for this, you'll find out in this book review.

First and foremost, the book "Permanent Record" by Edward Snowden is an autobiography. So the book is about Edward Snowden the person. The reader learns everything, from the early beginnings of his work to his revelations in the summer of 2013, which triggered the worldwide NSA scandal. What I liked most are his technical explanations (high level), with which he explains his own methods and those of the intelligence services.

The topic of the book is the dark machinations of state institutions in surveilling their citizens. Edward Snowden describes what drove him to break with his old life and why his pangs of conscience ultimately drove him into exile as a whistleblower.

"Permanent Record" paints a dark picture of everything that is possible in the digital world and how these possibilities are exploited every day and turned against people. If you know more about the dangers, you can more easily recognize where you need to protect yourself (privately as well as professionally).

As an autobiography, "Permanent Record" is above all for readers who want to learn more about Edward Snowden and the NSA scandal of 2013. In addition (and this is why I mention the book here), the book is for all those who want to take a gentle look behind the scenes of the intelligence services. We learn at a high level which methods and goals the intelligence services pursue in the information age.

If you expect detailed technical descriptions in the book that let you carry out hacks yourself, I have to disappoint you. In some places Edward Snowden deliberately does not go into further technical detail, because he wants to avoid encouraging others to commit criminal acts (anyone interested can find details on the dark web). But you can imagine what surveillance options exist. For that reason, the book is also suitable for non-nerds and non-techies.

After reading the book, I rebuilt my entire private IT infrastructure. I persistently tried to get away from the established providers like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook and to rely more on open source:

• A Linux distribution on my personal computer
• CalyxOS as the OS on my smartphone
• Open source cloud on my own servers instead of Google Drive/OneDrive/Dropbox etc.
• Encrypted email provider instead of Gmail
• Open source password manager
• Consistent encryption of private data
• and much more.

Sometimes this was easier, sometimes harder, because as customers we love simplicity. The well-known technology companies have understood how to tie us users to them – with all the privacy problems Edward Snowden describes. For this reason, I recommend the book to everyone who wants to know more about the dark sides of the digital age. But I also recommend it to everyone to sharpen the understanding that the big tech companies do NOT have our best interests at heart! "Permanent Record" paints a dark picture of what awaits us every day in the data jungle and how unscrupulously we users are exploited. That really should interest everyone.

At this point I would like to recommend the podcast Darknet Diaries to you, in which you learn more about world-famous hacks and dark machinations.