Blown To Bits Book Report

The book Blown to Bits by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis has often given me the impression that this book was intended to warn its audience of the many dangers of technology, and that the benefits of using technology are not worth the risks. The book’s third chapter, “Ghosts in the Machine,” however, was different, because I noticed that the authors were just giving information about things that computers do that people may not realize, but not necessarily implying that all of these abilities are dangerous or harmful. For this reason, and for many other reasons, I enjoyed reading this chapter of Blown to Bits more than I have enjoyed reading any other chapter so far. The first topic discussed in this chapter left me with feelings of both concern and relief. The chapter opened by discussing how digital information that people may think is hidden, or even destroyed, is often still accessible to the public. The authors described how the bits that store a given piece of information are never destroyed, but simply overwritten by other data when files are replaced or “deleted.” The descriptions of the people who sold their devices to people, only to have the people who bought their devices to discover personal identification information, “deleted” documents, and even credit card account …show more content…
The idea that a file can exist on a computer even after the user thought they had deleted it gives the reader the idea that the file behaves like a ghost. I was glad to read the information presented in this chapter, especially since I felt this chapter had more of an informative, unbiased tone than previous chapters did. Every time I read a new chapter from Blown to Bits, I learn more about today’s computers, and, as with each previous chapter, I am glad I read this chapter. From now on, I will be more careful when attempting to remove a file from my computer or