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Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet Anne P. Mintz, ed. 2002. Medford, NJ: CyberAge Books. [ISBN 0-910965-60-9. 275 pages, including index. $24.95 USD (softcover).]
Ever feel your stomach knotting when you enter your credit card number to make an online purchase or key in your Social Security Number to access your online bank account as you momentarily consider all the harm that could ensue if the Internet had no security? You should. Anne P. Mintz's Web of deception catalogs example after example of privacy invasions, fraudulent schemes, scams, hoaxes, and intentionally misleading Web sites to reveal myriad risks for Internet users, on both an individual and a corporate level. It provides compelling evidence that there is no security or privacy on the Internet and that there are plenty of people awaiting an opportunity to show you that anything you enter is assessable by more than the intended receiver.
The message is not simply to convince Internet users that clangers lurk beyond the keyboard or screen. As Barbara Quint and Mintz explain in the Endnote,
You might think that the editor and authors of this book want you to believe you are innocent victims of powers beyond your control. This could...